Base-Ball: How to Become a Player | Page 2

the bat used was bent at the end,
just as now. The first straight bats were used in the old English game
called club ball. This was simply "fungo hitting," in which one player
tossed the ball in the air and hit it, as it fell, to others who caught it, or
sometimes it was pitched to him by another player.
Concerning the origin of the American game of base-ball there exists
considerable uncertainty. A correspondent of Porter's Spirit of the
Times, as far back as 1856, begins a series of letters on the game by
acknowledging his utter inability to arrive at any satisfactory
conclusion upon this point; and a writer of recent date introduces a
research into the history of the game with the frank avowal that he has
only succeeded in finding "a remarkable lack of literature on the
subject."
In view of its extraordinary growth and popularity as "Our National
Game," the author deems it important that its true origin should, if
possible, be ascertained, and he has, therefore, devoted to this inquiry
more space than might at first seem necessary.
In 1856, within a dozen years from the time of the systematization of
the game, the number of clubs in the metropolitan district and the
enthusiasm attending their matches began to attract particular attention.
The fact became apparent that it was surely superseding the English
game of cricket, and the adherents of the latter game looked with
ill-concealed jealousy on the rising upstart. There were then, as now,
persons who believed that everything good and beautiful in the world
must be of English origin, and these at once felt the need of a pedigree
for the new game. Some one of them discovered that in certain features
it resembled an English game called "rounders," and immediately it

was announced to the American public that base-ball was only the
English game transposed. This theory was not admitted by the
followers of the new game, hut, unfortunately, they were not in a
position to emphasize the denial. One of the strongest advocates of the
rounder theory, an Englishman-born himself, was the writer for
out-door sports on the principal metropolitan publications. In this
capacity and as the author of a number of independent works of his
own, and the writer of the "base-ball" articles in several encyclopedias
and books of sport, he has lost no opportunity to advance his pet theory.
Subsequent writers have, blindly, it would seem, followed this lead,
until now we find it asserted on every hand as a fact established by
some indisputable evidence; and yet there has never been adduced a
particle of proof to support this conclusion.
While the author of this work entertains the greatest respect for that
gentleman, both as a journalist and man, and believes that base-ball
owes to him a monument of gratitude for the brave fight he has always
made against the enemies and abuses of the game, he yet considers this
point as to the game's origin worthy of further investigation, and he still
regards it as an open question.
When was base-ball first played in America?
The first contribution which in any way refers to the antiquity of the
game is the first official report of the "National Association" in 1858.
This declares "The game of base-ball has long been a favorite and
popular recreation in this country, but it is only within the last fifteen
years that any attempt has been made to systematize and regulate the
game." The italics are inserted to call attention to the fact that in the
memory of the men of that day base-ball had been played a long time
prior to 1845, so long that the fifteen years of systematized play was
referred to by an "only."
Colonel Jas. Lee, elected an honorary member of the Knickerbocker
Club in 1846, said that he had often played the same game when a boy,
and at that time he was a man of sixty or more years. Mr. Wm. F. Ladd,
my informant, one of the original members of the Knickerbockers, says
that he never in any way doubted Colonel Lee's declaration, because he

was a gentleman eminently worthy of belief.
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, several years since, said to the reporter of
a Boston paper that base-ball was one of the sports of his college days
at Harvard, and Dr. Holmes graduated in 1829.
Mr. Charles De Bost, the catcher and captain of the old Knickerbockers,
played base-ball on Long Island fifty years ago, and it was the same
game which the Knickerbockers afterward played.
In the absence of any recorded proof as to the antiquity of the game,
testimony such as the foregoing becomes important, and it might be
multiplied to an unlimited extent.
Another noticeable point is the belief