Base-Ball: How to Become a Player | Page 4

only a poor imitation of the older
American game of base-ball?
Up to this point we have waived the question of resemblance between
the two games, but let us now inquire what are the points of similarity.
Are these, after all, so striking as to warrant the assumption that one
game was derived from the other, no matter which may be shown to be
the older? In each there are "sides;" the ball is tossed to the striker, who
hits it with a bat; he is out if the ball so hit is caught; he runs to
different bases in succession and may be put out if hit by the ball when
between the bases. But with this the resemblance ceases. In base-ball
nine men constitute a side, while in rounders there may be any number
over three. In base-ball there are four bases (including the home), and
the field is a diamond. In rounders the bases are five in number and the
field a pentagon in shape. There is a fair and foul hit in base-ball, while
in rounders no such thing is known. In rounders if a ball is struck at and
missed, or if hit so that it falls back of the striker, he is out, while in
base-ball the ball must be missed three times and the third one caught
in order to retire the striker; and a foul, unless caught like any other ball,
has no effect and is simply declared "dead." In rounders the score is
reckoned by counting one for each base made, and some of the
authorities say the run is completed when the runner has reached the
base next on the left of the one started from. In base-ball one point is
scored only when the runner has made every base in succession and

returned to the one from which he started. In rounders every player on
the side must be put out before the other side can come in, while in
base-ball from time immemorial the rule has been "three out, all out."
The distinctive feature of rounders, and the one which gives it its name,
is that when all of a side except two have been retired, one of the two
remaining may call for "the rounder;" that is, he is allowed three hits at
the ball, and if in any one of these he can make the entire round of the
bases, all the players of his side are reinstated as batters. No such
feature as this was ever heard of in base-ball, yet, as said, it is the
characteristic which gives to rounders its name, and any derivation of
that game must certainly have preserved it.
If the points of resemblance were confined solely to these two games it
would prove nothing except that boys' ideas as well as men's often run
in the same channels. The very ancient game of bandy ball has its
double in an older Persian sport, and the records of literary and
mechanical invention present some curious coincidences. But, as a
matter of fact, every point common to these two, games was known and
used long before in other popular sports. That the ball was tossed to the
bat to be hit was true of a number of other games, among which were
club ball, tip cat, and cricket; in both of the latter and also in stool ball
bases were run, and in tip cat, a game of much greater antiquity than
either base- ball or rounders, the runner was out if hit by the ball when
between bases. In all of these games the striker was out if the ball when
hit was caught. Indeed, a comparison will show that there are as many
features of base-ball common to cricket or tip cat as there are to
rounders.
In view, then, of these facts, that the points of similarity are not
distinctive, and that the points of difference are decidedly so, I can see
no reason in analogy to say that one game is descended from the other,
no matter which may be shown to be the older.
There was a game known in some parts of this country fifty or more
years ago called town-ball. In 1831 a club was regularly organized in
Philadelphia to play the game, and it is recorded that the first day for
practice enough members were not present to make up town-ball, and

so a game of "two-old-cat" was played. This town-ball was so nearly
like rounders that one must have been the prototype of the other, but
town- ball and base-ball were two very different games. When this
same town- ball club decided in 1860 to adopt base-ball instead, many
of its principal members resigned, so great was the enmity to the latter
game. Never,