BASEBALL - The Early Years

[Pedro]

In the early 1830’s baseball was popular enough to warrant the publishing of a rule book. Robin Carver’s Book of Sports (1834) included rules to the game. Carver’s book also included a wood engraving showing the game played on Boston common. The same block was used to illustrate several publications over the next few years, including the first and second editions of The Boys Book of Sports. This illustration is said to be the first to depict the game of baseball.
Questions:
Is the pitcher about to throw underhand? Looks more like a rock than a ball.
Why no gloves? Was the artist making it up?
Maybe Historum has a Baseball historian that can answer these perplexing questions.

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll210/PedroHistory/baseball.jpg

[avon]

This woodcut is from 1744 and, whilst supposedly depicting 'stoolball' is the first known publication to carry the word 'base-ball'. The reason for reproducing it here is that the thrower (pitcher?) appears to be ready to throw the ball under-arm.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Aprettylittlepocketbook.jpg


As for the ball, it would seem that many of the precursors of baseball involve hitting the runner with the ball as opposed to hitting the base. One would imagine that the ball would be reasonably soft!

[Pedro]

That's a great find. I remember reading something about throwing the runner out by knocking him out. lol. Hopefully these arcane questions will be answered in the two books I ordered today. i.e. Low and Inside and Three Men on Third. Both by H. Allen Smith, a humor writer popular during the 40s and 50s. Both books contain anecdotes about the early years of baseball. I read the first one decades ago, was glad to find it on Amazon. Now if it will only get through customs without being stolen.

[Pedro]

As Avon showed us the word baseball was first recorded in 1744 in England to which I have since found out was also called 'rounders'. It referred to a game in which a batter hit a soft ball and had to circle round two bases to score runs without being put out by being hit with the ball. Similar to today's cricket. Batting a ball, or any spherical object, with a stick had undoubtedly been going on since Eve wracked an apple. We know the game had crossed the Atlantic early, for a game called base was played by soldiers at Valley Forge (1778). In the next century it was known by various names, stick ball, goal ball, and barn ball. By 1920 in New England, they were using four bases instead of two base posts, and running around the four bases which counted as one run. It was at this time the game was divided into two teams. This was played on village greens and called town ball or the Massachusetts game. In the late 1830s, the rules changed a bit when someone suggested the runner could be put out by throwing the ball to the base ahead of him or by touching him with the ball instead of throwing it at him. Now a harder ball could be used, which could be thrown faster and hit farther. This meant the game now needed men in the outfield to catch the ball and players in the infield to guard the bases. The first standard rules were published in 1845 and from there the modern game that we know continued to grow and be refined. All of which is perfectly logical, except for that stuff about 'designated hitter.' I reckon even something as perfect as baseball has to have one flaw.

[Bucephalus]

All of which is perfectly logical, except for that stuff about 'designated hitter.' I reckon even something as perfect as baseball has to have one flaw.

If only it was just the designated hitter rule... 1845 was a long time before the Players' Union, free agency, steroids, and George Steinbrenner... Blech. :(

[Pedro]

If only it was just the designated hitter rule... 1845 was a long time before the Players' Union, free agency, steroids, and George Steinbrenner... Blech. :(

Loving the game with a passion and having a classical turn of mind (read old fashioned) I can't accept that the above mentioned travesties even exist. :)

[Bucephalus]

Loving the game with a passion and having a classical turn of mind (read old fashioned) I can't accept that the above mentioned travesties even exist. :)

For me, baseball hasn't been the same since Fay Vincent's ouster in 1992 and the 1994 strike.

I envy your state of blissful denial...

[Nick]

In the early 1830’s baseball was popular enough to warrant the publishing of a rule book. Robin Carver’s Book of Sports (1834) included rules to the game. Carver’s book also included a wood engraving showing the game played on Boston common. The same block was used to illustrate several publications over the next few years, including the first and second editions of The Boys Book of Sports. This illustration is said to be the first to depict the game of baseball.
Questions:
Is the pitcher about to throw underhand? Looks more like a rock than a ball.
Why no gloves? Was the artist making it up?
Maybe Historum has a Baseball historian that can answer these perplexing questions.

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll210/PedroHistory/baseball.jpg
I think it's because in the past baseballs weren't as hard as they are today. They were stuffed with old rags so would do less damage.

[Pedro]

For me, baseball hasn't been the same since Fay Vincent's ouster in 1992 and the 1994 strike.

I envy your state of blissful denial...

Good God!! that is MODERN history. I hark back to the days when you could have three men on third. Any one know that story. Ask me, please. I am dying to tell it.

"blissful denial" the modern term for senility. cool.

[Bucephalus]

Good God!! that is MODERN history. I hark back to the days when you could have three men on third. Any one know that story. Ask me, please. I am dying to tell it.

"blissful denial" the modern term for senility. cool.

OK, I'll bite. Please tell the story of "Three Men on Third".

As far as the history of Baseball is concerned, as a kid I remember watching Cal Ripken play at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore (now demolished, of course). Almost everything about baseball since then has been a bit disappointing, really. Speaking of not-quite-so-modern baseball history, did you get the chance to watch the movie "61*" about Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle (released in 2001)? I thought it was quite well done.

[Pedro]

OK, I'll bite. Please tell the story of "Three Men on Third".

As far as the history of Baseball is concerned, as a kid I remember watching Cal Ripken play at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore (now demolished, of course). Almost everything about baseball since then has been a bit disappointing, really. Speaking of not-quite-so-modern baseball history, did you get the chance to watch the movie "61*" about Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle (released in 2001)? I thought it was quite well done.

Yes. I saw the movie and enjoyed it very much. Mantel was one of my heroes when growing up. As you know the movie was made by Billy Crystal who is a big Yankee fan. Bless Chrystal for buying Mickey's glove at auction for 50,000 U$ dollars. A classy way to get money to the widow without the embarrassment of appearing charitable.
I especially like the brief scene of Ruth's widow with Mrs. Maris at the ball park waiting for Roger to break the record. A well played scene of the joy felt by Mrs. Maris contrasted with Mrs. Ruth...well it must have been a sense of grief. Another piece of memory receding into the past. WOW powerful.

I'll get to the 3 men on base, since you haven't hear it, a little later. Thanks for asking.:)

[Pedro]

This is from the book Three Men on Third and other wacky events from the world of sports.
By Carl Sifakis.

For over three decades, until the Brooklyn dodgers deserted that borough for the sunnier climes of Los Angeles, there was a famous joke that originated when a fan had to leave Ebbets Field before the completion of a Dodgers game. As he entered the cab, the driver asked him how the contest was going. “Pretty good,” the passenger replied. “The Dodgers have three men on base.” The cabbie responded, “Yea, which base?”

In their later years, the 1940s and 1950, the Brooklyn Dodgers took their baseball seriously. Before that time they were known as the Daffiness Boys, and the daffiest of them all was Babe Herman, who besides being a great hitter and a dreadful fielder was a genuine eccentric when negotiating the base paths. The Babe was the sparkplug for the crazy time the Dodgers ended up with three men on base -- the same base.

The game with the Boston Braves was tied 1-1 in the bottom of the seventh with the bases filled and one man out. Hank DeBerry was on third, Dazzy Vance on second, and chuck Fewster on first, with Herman at bat. Herman hit a hard drive to right, and the runners held up a moment to see if the ball would be caught, an eventuality the Babe had never seemed to take into consideration when running the bases. The ball banged against the fence. DeBerry came in to score and Vance rounded third and headed for the plate. Fewster was between second and third when he was shocked to see a steaming Herman bearing down on him, also on his way to third. Mickey O’Neil, coaching at third, also spotted Herman making his mindless headlong dash. “Back, back.” O’Neil screamed. Vance, almost home, stopped, thinking the frantic instructions were meant for him, and turned back for third. Fewster, running for his life, got to the base standing up just as Vance came sliding in from home and Herman from second. It was a miracle Fewster was not spiked coming and going. Needless to say there were three confused Dodgers there, while coach O’Neil slammed his cap to the dirt.

The Boston third baseman got the ball after it had been thrown home and tagged Vance and Herman but actually missed the tag on Fewster, who just sort of wandered off the baf in a daze. In point of fact, the Boston third baseman had not actually tagged a soul. The lead runner Vance was entitled to the base, so the tag o him was meaningless. There was also no need to tag out Herman, since he was out automatically for passing Fewster. Meanwhile, Fewster simply decided a double play had ended the inning. He started for behind second base to pick up his glove on the short outfield grass and take up his fielding position there. Finally Doc Gatrea, the Boston second baseman, called for the ball and slapped the tag on Fewster, who would have been safe if he had simply gone back to second. With the tag, the umpire yelled, “Fewster, you’re out.” Fewster said, “I thought I was out five minutes ago.”

That ended the confusing inning with one run in. Babe Herman never could understand why he was subjected to so much abuse about his funning on the play, and for years he chafed that the description of the play was botched over the years. True, as he contended, he had not triple into a triple play as some said, but had merely doubled into a double play. And he observed years later: “Only time I can thin of when a fellow drives in the winning run and the press makes him a goat instead of a hero!”
Herman was technically correct, but there remained just one way to describe the daffiest Dodger of them all: Good hit, no field, insane run.

[Bucephalus]

Great story, Pedro. It sounds a bit like some of the intramural softball games we used to play in college. Too bad this wacky play took place before the television era. That would be a highlight I could watch over and over again...

Thanks! :)

[Pedro]

That was one of my two favorite baseball stories.
Here is the other one which comes from Low and Inside by H. Allen Smith and Ira Smith.

“It can get mighty hot in Minnesota in the summertime, and it was hot that fourteenth of July in 1903 when two teams, representing the towns of Benson and Willmar, tangled in a double header.

All the players were frazzled by the time the second game began, and when that game went into extra innings they were pooped beyond description.

Thielman, the star pitcher for Willmar, dragged himself up to the plate at the opening of the tenth inning. He swung listlessly at a pitch and got a single. The next batter, O’Toole, met the ball solidly and sent it streaking toward the outfield.

Pitcher Thielman, in spite of his vast weariness, started his sprint around the base paths ahead of O’Toole. Midway between second and third Thielman began to slow down and then to stagger. Reaching third, he collapsed in a heap on top of the bag.

Down came O’Toole from second to find Thielman draped over the bag. O’Toole looked toward the outfield and saw that the ball had not yet been retrieved. He knew the rules. It would be illegal for him to pass a runner. So he picked up the pitcher, hoisted his limp body to his shoulder, and hobbled down the line. Reaching home, he lowered Thielman so that one foot dragged across the plate. Then he himself touched it, just a moment before the ball reached the catcher.

Having effected the scoring of two runs, O’Toole lowered Thielman to the ground and players gathered around. A doctor came out of the stands and bent over the pitcher. Finally he straightened up.
“this man,” he said, “died back there on third base. His heart broke down under the strain.”

Thus a run was scored by a dead man, and if ever an incident in baseball could be labeled “unique,” this one would appear to qualify. Yet the old files show that it happened another time, up in New Brunswick, when the Chatham Stars were playing the University of St. Joseph. This time a man named O’Hara collapsed on third base after a teammate got a long hit, and the teammate carried O’Hara’s body to the plate just as O’Toole had done with Thielman.”

Apparently baseball also has it’s unwritten rules.

[avon]

Two great stories. Mucho ... :)

[Bucephalus]

Apparently baseball also has it’s unwritten rules.

Yes, apparently one of them is akin to the "no man left behind" soldier's creed. Of course, this one would be more like "make sure you score all the runs before you call the coroner."

Great story! Thanks. :)

[Pedro]

Yes, apparently one of them is akin to the "no man left behind" soldier's creed. Of course, this one would be more like "make sure you score all the runs before you call the coroner."

Great story! Thanks. :)

I guess the moral for the young is that if you can't score in life, you may score in death. Sort of akin to the 72 virgin thing.
Personally I wouldn't mind going while at bat.

[Bucephalus]

Personally I wouldn't mind going while at bat.

:D There are worse ways to go...