I found a mention of Bumpus Jones on p. 545 of Volume II of the "History
of Oakland County"... but not the tempting bit.

Wiles, Tim wrote:
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> found a note in TSN Nov 14, 1940, a small article entitled "Antedates
> Cooperstown"
>
> Note says in part, "Troy, a small hamlet in Southwestern Michigan, has
> documentary proof that a game was played there thirteen years before
> 1839."
>
> Haven't heard of this before.
>
> Article goes on:
>
> "the lineups of the two teams contesting in the game at Troy in 1826
> are contained in a history of Oakland County, owned by a Mrs. H.B.
> Wattles."
>
> Anyone know anything about this?  I think I will be close to Troy next
> week, and might be able to check it out.
>
> I find nothing on the protoball chronology on this.
>
> Off to check google books.
>
> TW
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Tim Wiles
> Director of Research
> National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum
> 25 Main Street, Cooperstown, NY, 13326
> Twiles@...
> 607-547-0332
> Fax 607-547-4094
> http://www.baseballhalloffame.org <http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/>
>
>
> "It's like church.  Many attend but few understand."  Wes Westrum, on
> baseball
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Tim Wiles
Director of Research
National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum
25 Main Street, Cooperstown, NY, 13326
Twiles@...
607-547-0332
Fax 607-547-4094
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org 

-----Original Message-----
From: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com On Behalf Of Larry McCray (lmccray@...)
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:27 AM
To: 19cBB
Subject: [19cBB] [Origins Topic] Ballplaying at College -- A Chronology

Fellow Wonderers --

Having a momentary feeling that it would be more interesting than reading
about the social implications of synthetic biology, I decided to ask the
Protoball chronology what it knew about ballplaying on campus.  Most of what
is knows is from US colleges from the 1760s to 1860.

There are 50 entries on college ballplaying on 19 campuses.  Three quarters
of these occurred after 1830.  Nine of the entries reflected a prohibition
of playing, the last of these appearing in 1825.  Two entries report
colleges' endorsement of ballplay.

The reference for 24 of the cases is to some form of the phrase "playing at
ball."  Ten report baseball, 8 tell of cricket, 7 tell of wicket, two of
town ball [the name remembered later on], and of course there's that one
peculiar Princeton mention of "baste" in 1786.

Celebs who recalled playing in their college days include Daniel Webster,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Rutherford B. Hayes, and
Benjamin Harrison.

Fully half of the references are from 7 Ivy League colleges, with only
Cornell missing from this roll call.  And only 4 of the colleges lie outside
the geographical footprint of the Ivy League: they are Bowdoin, the
University of Georgia, and two Ohio schools, one of them Kenyon College.
Harvard boasts the most ballplaying cites of any college, with 7 references.
It figures, because Harvard is so damned old: by 1781, it was already deemed
an "ancient custom" for freshmen to supply bats and balls for student games.
At this point, it looks like Princeton formed the first baseball club [1857]
Intercollegiate play started in 1859.

All this signifies almost nothing, of course, but still, I have a 12-page
Word compilation of these entries, and you are welcome to see if you can
find patterns in these particular tea leaves.

  Larry McCray
  lmccray@...

The file can be downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/yvkj6u

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the SABRorigins
group.

   File        : /Univs20080201.pdf
   Uploaded by : rockymtnsabr <rodericnelson@...>
   Description : Early Baseball on Campus References, from Project Protoball -
Larry McCray

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SABRorigins/files/Univs20080201.pdf

To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/members/web/index.htmlfiles

Regards,

rockymtnsabr <rodericnelson@...>

The C.C. Morris Cricket Library at Haverford College will be hosting a
discussion of the common ancestry and divergent history of the two great
games of baseball and cricket.  Keynote speakers will be SABR member Tom
Shieber of the Nat'l Baseball Hall of Fame and Beth Hise of the Maryleborne
Cricket Club Museum (Lord's, England).

Wednesday, September 5, 2007, 7-9 pm
Stokes Auditorium, Haverford College, Haverford, PA


The event is free and open to the public, but RSVP is requested.

E-mail ccmorris@...;  Phone (610) 896-1162;  Fax (610) 896-4919

Further details:  www.haverford.edu/library/cricket

The following may be of interest to wicket
researchers:

(1) The Vermont Gazette, vol. 70, no. 13 (Thursday,
July 19, 1849, p. 1, col. 2:

"BALL PLAYING.--A game of Wicket came off between the
ball-players of  Westfield and Granville, Mass., on
Thursday, at which the Westfield boys won the first
three games by 10, 20, and 40 runs."


(2) Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette, vol. 5, no. 116
(Tuesday, September 4, 1849), p. 2, col. 2:

"BAT AND BALL AMONG THE LADIES.--Nine married ladies
beat nine single ones at a game of wicket in England
recently.  The gamesters were all dressed in
white--the married party with blue trimmings and the
others with pink."

Unless the author of the latter account meant New
England instead of England, one has to suspect the
game being discussed was actually cricket.  Whatever
the case, the account is interesting as an early
report of women playing bat-and-ball games.  Are there
any other such reports this early?

As for the first account, are there other accounts of
wicket playing in Massachusetts?

Craig B. Waff

From the February 1819 issue of The Gentleman's
Magazine, in an article on the Manners and Customs of
Herefordshire, writing of the yeomen of the county:

"...notwithstanding their inclination to religion,
they meet in large parties upon Sunday afternoons to
play foot-ball, wicket (an old-fashioned cricket), or
other gymnasticks."

I am sadly ignorant of the early history of cricket,
so I don't know if it is surprising or expected that
the term "wicket" is found this way in England, as in
Connecticut.

Richard Hershberger



________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play
Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games.
http://sims.yahoo.com/

Ah, a foreshadowing of Bill Veeck's plloy with Eddie Gaedel.

Jean Ardell
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

-----Original Message-----
From: "Rod Nelson" <rnelson@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 07:38:31
To:<SABRorigins@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [SABRorigins] one-armed vs one-legged cricket match

-----Original Message-----
  From: 19cBB@yahoogroups.: <mailto:19cBB%40yahoogroups.com> com On Behalf Of
Richard Hershberger
  Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 10:22 PM
  To: 19cBB@yahoogroups.: <mailto:19cBB%40yahoogroups.com> com
  Subject: [19cBB] one-armed vs one-legged cricket match

  OK, this one isn't really on topic, but...

  In the 1870s there were several novelty games of
  baseball, between veterans with one team composed of
  one-armed men and the other one-legged. It turns out
  to have been an old idea.

  From The Independant Chronicle and the Universal
  Advertiser, August 29, 1793, quoting an unnamed London
  paper:

  "CURIOUS CRICKET-MATCH
  A young nobleman, of great notoriety in the
  [illegible], has made a match of a singular nature,
  with one of the would-be members of the jockey club,
  for a considerable sum of money, to be played by
  Greenwich pensioners, on Blackheath, sometime in the
  present month. The 11 on one side are to have only
  one arm each; and the others, to have both their
  arms, and only one leg each. -- The nobleman has not
  at present made his election, whether he intends to
  back the legs or the wings--but the odds are
  considerably in favor of the latter."

  Richard Hershberger [rrhersh@yahoo.: <mailto:rrhersh%40yahoo.com> com]

-----Original Message-----
From: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com On Behalf Of Richard Hershberger
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 10:22 PM
To: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [19cBB] one-armed vs one-legged cricket match

OK, this one isn't really on topic, but...

In the 1870s there were several novelty games of
baseball, between veterans with one team composed of
one-armed men and the other one-legged.  It turns out
to have been an old idea.

From The Independant Chronicle and the Universal
Advertiser, August 29, 1793, quoting an unnamed London
paper:

"CURIOUS CRICKET-MATCH
A young nobleman, of great notoriety in the
[illegible], has made a match of a singular nature,
with one of the would-be members of the jockey club,
for a considerable sum of money, to be played by
Greenwich pensioners, on Blackheath, sometime in the
present month.  The 11 on one side are to have only
one arm each;  and the others, to have both their
arms, and only one leg each. -- The nobleman has not
at present made his election, whether he intends to
back the legs or the wings--but the odds are
considerably in favor of the latter."



Richard Hershberger [rrhersh@...]

-----Original Message-----
From: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com On Behalf Of Richard Hershberger
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 10:03 PM
To: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [19cBB] Salem ordinance 1762

The Essex Gazette "from Tuesday, December 6, to
Tuesday, December 13, 1768" p. 81, publishing an
excerpt from the By-Laws and Orders of the Town of
Salem, July, 26, 1762:

"Chapter II
For Preventing Damage by Foot-Ball, etc.
It is Voted and Ordered, that no Person shall use the
Exercise of plyaing or kicking of Foot-Ball, or the
Exercise of Bat-and-Ball, or Cricket, within any of
the Publick Places, Street, or Lanes, within the Body
of this Town, under a Penalty of One Shilling and Six
Pence."

Since "Bat-and-Ball" clearly does not refer to
cricket, the possibilies are baseball or wicket.

Richard Hershberger [rrhersh@...]

Bravo, David. Thanks for sharing it.

All the best,

Jean
--- Rod Nelson <rnelson@...> wrote:

> This just in from our time-traveling correspondent,
> David Block.
>
>  - Rod Nelson
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com On Behalf Of David Block
> Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 7:23 AM
> To: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [19cBB] some new findings
>
> Fellow 19cBB'ers,
>
> Greetings from England where I am in the final days
> of a five-week visit.
> While most of my trip has been spent enjoying a
> family vacation (despite the
>
> miserable weather), I have also been able to carve
> out a few days to pursue
> research into early baseball. And for several other
> days I was tagging along
>
> with, and helping out with, the making of a
> documentary film on baseball's
> origins, a project of MLB.com.
>
> In the course of all this, a couple of new 18th
> century baseball references
> have come to the fore. The first of these I came
> across in the British
> Library, directed to it by that institution's
> superior electronic databases.
>
> It is found in a book entitled "The Card" published
> in 1755.
>
> The second 18th century reference to baseball --
> also coincidentally from
> 1755 -- appears in the diary of a 19-year-old man
> named William Bray. This
> discovery was a direct consequence of the presence
> here of the MLB.com film
> crew. The story of how the find was made is a long
> and colorful one,
> involving rounders, stool-ball, an eccentric English
> lady, the BBC and yours
>
> truly. Once I return to the states I will write it
> up for this list.
>
> Neither of these references provides much
> information about how 1755
> baseball was played, but both provide interesting
> information nonetheless.
> I'll also send along the specific content of each
> when I get home.
>
> Cheers!
>
> David Block
>
>
>

This just in from our time-traveling correspondent, David Block.

  - Rod Nelson

-----Original Message-----
From: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com On Behalf Of David Block
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 7:23 AM
To: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [19cBB] some new findings

Fellow 19cBB'ers,

Greetings from England where I am in the final days of a five-week visit.
While most of my trip has been spent enjoying a family vacation (despite the

miserable weather), I have also been able to carve out a few days to pursue
research into early baseball. And for several other days I was tagging along

with, and helping out with, the making of a documentary film on baseball's
origins, a project of MLB.com.

In the course of all this, a couple of new 18th century baseball references
have come to the fore. The first of these I came across in the British
Library, directed to it by that institution's superior electronic databases.

It is found in a book entitled "The Card" published in 1755.

The second 18th century reference to baseball -- also coincidentally from
1755 -- appears in the diary of a 19-year-old man named William Bray. This
discovery was a direct consequence of the presence here of the MLB.com film
crew. The story of how the find was made is a long and colorful one,
involving rounders, stool-ball, an eccentric English lady, the BBC and yours

truly. Once I return to the states I will write it up for this list.

Neither of these references provides much information about how 1755
baseball was played, but both provide interesting information nonetheless.
I'll also send along the specific content of each when I get home.

Cheers!

David Block

At the urging of Rod Nelson, I am cross-posting a message that I sent to the
19cBB listserv
earlier today, and I am also taking the liberty of posting here John Thorn's
thoughtful
response.   For those of you seeing the messages for the first time, I welcome
further
comment on the "three base ball" game described in the documents quoted by
myself and
John.

Craig B. Waff

****************************************************

In the article

"Sports in Old Brooklyn: Colonel John Oakey Tells of
the Games of His Boyhood: How Some Well Known Men
Amused Themselves in Bygone Days--Duck-on-the-Rock,
Three Base Ball and Two Old Cat Good Enough for Them,"
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, vol. 54, no. 292 (Sunday, 21
October 1894), p. 21, cols. 4-5,

the anonymous author, among other things, notes that

"Erasmus Hall academy had a fine playground
surrounding it. Here John Oakey and his school
fellows played many a game of three base ball. The
boys who played were called hinders, pitchers,
catchers and outers, and in order to put a boy out it
was necessary to strike him with the ball. On one
occasion John Oakey threw the ball from the second
base and put another boy out. The boy said he did not
feel the ball and therefore he had not been put out.
John made up his mind that the next time he caught
that chap between bases he would not say afterward
that he did not feel the ball. It was only a few days
after that an opportunity occurred. John let the ball
go for all he was worth and caught his boy in the
back. He went down in a heap, but instantly sprang to
his feet and cried out, "It didn't hit me; it didn't
hit me." But John Oakey and all the boys knew better.
For a week after the boy had a lame back, but he
would never acknowledge that the ball did it."

Has anyone on the list come across usage elsewhere of
the phrase "three base ball" to describe a game that
obviously involved some potentially painful plugging?

The above article notes that Oakey was born in
Brooklyn in 1830, but went to Flatbush with his
parents to live when he was 7 years of age, where soon
after he began attending Erasmus Hall Academy.

Additional biographical details on Oakey are provided
in the following obituary:

"Colonel John Oakey Found Dead in Bed: Apoplexy
Believed to Have been the Cause of Death," The
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, vol. 58, no. 82 (Thursday, 24
March 1898), p. 16, col. 5

where the author states that Oakey was born on
September 12, 1829, and that his early schooling, at
Erasmus Hall Academy in Flatbush, was in preparation
for an academical course at Yale University, which he
entered in 1845.

Thus the aforementioned "three base ball" incident
occurred sometime between 1836 (or 1837) and 1845, and
I would guess most likely in the early 1840s.

Oakey, BTW, went on to hold a number of governmental
positions, which are discussed in the above articles.
In addition, as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle issue of 26
July 1858 (p. 3, col. 1) noted, he was elected vice
president of an unnamed newly organized base ball club
in Flatbush.

Craig B. Waff

**********************************************************

This is excellent, Craig. You ask about other references to "three base
ball." Well, not by that name precisely, but the import is clear:

In a letter to William S. Cogswell dated January 10, 1905, Abraham G. Mills,
just beginning to accumulate data for his Commission's report, wrote:

"Among the vivid recollections of my early life at Union Hall Academy [in
Jamaica, Long Island] is a game of ball in which I played, where the boys of
the side at bat were put out by being hit with the ball. You made a splendid
shot at me at quite a long distance, and put me out fairly and squarely
while [I was] running from second base to home. My recollection is that we
had a first base near the batsman's position; the second base was a tree at
some distance, and the third base was the home base, also near the batsman's
position. This . at least, as I remember it, we played it Union Hall Academy
for some years."

To which Cogswell replied on January 19 of 1906:

"My recollection of the game of base ball as we played for years at Union
Hall, say from 1849 to 1856, is quite clear. You are quite right about the
three bases, their location and the third base being home. When there were
few players there was a rule against screwing, i.e., making strikes that now
would be called 'foul.' We used flat bats, and it was considered quite an
art to be able to 'screw' well, as that sent the ball away from the bases."

Cogswell also supplied an interesting section on the game's rules: a batsman
is out if the ball is caught on the fly or the bound; the ball must strike
the runner or touch him between bases to record an out; all must be retired
before the side is out; and three home runs by the last batter would restore
the side to the bat.

john thorn

That's OK.  I understand the ad copy is not yours.
Auction catalog copy is often quite bad.  It combines
the usual misunderstandings of early baseball with a
sales pitch about how this item is So Terribly
Important.

I wouldn't have said anything except that I have seen
the Magna Carta metaphor elsewhere.  The Olympics and
their constitution are interesting, and understanding
them is important in understanding how sports clubs
developed.  This casting about for superlatives is
not, however, helpful.

Richard Hershberger

--- Rod Nelson <rnelson@...> wrote:

> Richard - Thanks for speaking out.. Good points
> all..
>
> Please don't hold me accountable for the verbiage, I
> was just pointing out
> that the document was out there and hopefully we'll
> be able to get a peek at
> it before the auction is closed..
>
> And throwing it out there to the Origins group, a
> dozen or so silent souls,
> hoping that it might generate some dialogue..  Now
> that I approved your
> membership, please post this reply to that forum,
> too.
>
> BTW, did you see Larry McCray's newsletter?
> Download from here:
> http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,2199
>
> Rod Nelson
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:19cBB@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Richard Hershberger
> Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 9:52 AM
> To: 19cBB@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [19cBB] From SCD Online Newsletter:
> 1838 Philadelphia Olympics
> Constitution to be Auctioned
>
> > According to REA officials, the 1838 Olympics
> > Constitution is the earliest
> > relic of organized baseball from the first
> organized
> > baseball team in
> > existence. Referred to by some as the "Magna
> Carta"
> > of the game of baseball,
> > REA officials described the piece as "arguably the
> > most historically
> > significant item relating to the origins of the
> > National Pastime in
> > existence. This is the document that records the
> > birth of organized
> > baseball."
>
> That paragraph is a remarkable concatination of
> nonsense.  Most of it can be disregarded as mere
> puffery, but I have seen the "Magna Carta" metaphor
> elsewhere, and it is a poor one.  I think I am going
> to rant and rave a bit now.  You have been warned:
>
> The place of the Magna Carta in our collective
> imagination is that it created something that
> otherwise would not have been created.  The barons
> confronted Bad King John at Runnymede and forced
> concessions from him, recorded in the great charter,
> with these concessions being the basis of the
> liberties we enjoy as Englishmen--erm--Americans.
> Had
> this not happened things Would Be Different today.
>
> How close is this version to reality?  Heck if I
> know.
>  My knowledge of English constitutional history is
> an
> utter disgrace.  My professors should be ashamed of
> themselves!  But it is this (likely mythical)
> account
> that is invoked by the Magna Carta metaphor.
>
> So how close is the 1838 Olympic constitution to
> fitting this metaphorical Magna Carta?  Not very.
> The
> Olympics weren't the first ball club.  If we count
> cricket clubs, they weren't even close.  If we don't
> count cricket clubs, why do we count the Olympics?
> They weren't playing a game directly ancestral to
> modern baseball any more than were the St. Georges,
> and the Olympics had absolutely no influence on the
> development of ball clubs in New York.
>
> The likely truth is that, had the Olympics not
> switched to the New York game, they would be ignored
> as a minor curiosity, much like their contemporaries
> the Philadelphia Quoits Club. This isn't an argument
> that the Olympics should be given less attention so
> much as that the Philadelphia Quoits Club should be
> given more. The urge in that era to organize
> sporting
> clubs is very important to understanding the origins
> of organized baseball.  The Olympics are of interest
> as a early and well-documented instance of this.
> But
> calling their constitution the Magna Carta of
> baseball
> is obfuscatory nonsense.
>
> Rant over:  move along, everybody:  nothing to see
> here!
>
> Richard Hershberger



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