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

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, 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,