Base-Ball: How to Become a Player | Page 5

until recently, was the assertion made that base-ball was a
development of town-ball, and it could not have been done had the
writers looked up at all the historical facts.
The latest attempt to fasten an English tab on the American game is
noteworthy. Not content to stand by the theory that our game is sprung
from the English rounders, it is now intimated that baseball itself, the
same game and under the same name, is of English origin. To complete
the chain, it is now only necessary for some English writer to tell us
that "in 1845 a number of English gentlemen sojourning in New York
organized a club called the Knickbockers, and introduced to Americans
the old English game of base-ball." This new departure has not yet
gained much headway, but it must be noticed on account of the
circumstances of its appearance.
The edition of Chambers' Encyclopedia just out, in its article on "base-
ball" says that the game was mentioned in Miss Austen's Northanger
Abbey, written about 1798, and leaves us to infer that it was the same
game that we now know by that name. It was not necessary to go into
the realm of fiction to find this ancient use of the name. A writer to the
London Times in 1874 pointed out that in 1748 the family of Frederick,
Prince of Wales, were represented as engaged in a game of base-ball.
Miss Austen refers to base-ball as played by the daughters of "Mrs.
Morland," the eldest of whom was fourteen. In Elaine's Rural Sports,
London, 1852, in an introduction to ball games in general, occurs this
passage: "There are few of us of either sex but have engaged in base-
ball since our majority." Whether in all these cases the same game was
meant matters not, and it is not established by the mere identity of
names. "Base," as meaning a place of safety, dates its origin from the
game of "prisoners' base" long before anything in the shape of base-ball
or rounders; so that any game of ball in which bases were a feature
would likely be known by that name. The fact that in the three

instances in which we find the name mentioned it is always a game for
girls or women, would justify the suspicion that it was not always the
same game, and that it in any way resembled our game is not to be
imagined. Base- ball in its mildest form is essentially a robust game,
and it would require an elastic imagination to conceive of little girls
possessed of physical powers such as its play demands.
Besides, if the English base-ball of 1748, 1798, and 1852 were the
same as our base-ball we would have been informed of that fact long
ago, and it would never have been necessary to attribute the origin of
our game to rounders. And when, in 1874, the American players were
introducing base-ball to Englishmen, the patriotic Britain would not
have said, as he then did, that our game was "only rounders with the
rounder left out," but he would at once have told us that base-ball itself
was an old English game.
But this latest theory is altogether untenable and only entitled to
consideration on account of the authority under which it is put forth.
In a little book called Jolly Games for Happy Homes, London, 1875,
dedicated to "wee little babies and grown-up ladies," there is described
a game called "base-ball." It is very similar in its essence to our game
and is probably a reflection of it. It is played by a number of girls in a
garden or field. Having chosen sides, the "leader" of the "out" side
tosses the ball to one of the "ins," who strikes it with her hand and then
scampers for the trees, posts, or other objects previously designated as
bases. Having recovered the ball, the "scouts," or those on the "outs,"
give chase and try to hit the fleeing one at a time when she is between
bases. There must be some other means, not stated, for putting out the
side; the ability to throw a ball with accuracy is vouchsafed to few girls,
and if the change of innings depended upon this, the game, like a
Chinese play, would probably never end. It is described, however, as a
charming pastime, and, notwithstanding its simplicity, is doubtless a
modern English conception of our National Game.
To recapitulate briefly, the assertion that base-ball is descended from
rounders is a pure assumption, unsupported even by proof that the latter
game antedates the former and unjustified by any line of reasoning

based upon the likeness of the games. The other attempt to declare
base-ball itself an out-and-out English game is scarcely worthy of
serious consideration.
But