1791 Baseball in Pittsfield, Mass.
By The SABR Office
SABR member John Thorn's discovery of a 213-year-old document believed to be the earliest written reference to baseball has got people talking.
In an announcement that has been widely reported in the media, Pittsfield, Massachusetts city officials released an authenticated document revealing that a 1791 bylaw was created there to protect the windows of a new meeting house by prohibiting anyone from playing baseball within 80 yards of the building.
According to Thorn, who is also part of SABR's Nineteenth-Century Research Committee, this document makes it clear to him that not only was baseball played in 1791 Pittsfield, it was rampant enough to have an ordinance against it.
Thorn, with the assistance of Ball Four author Jim Bouton and others were able to uncover this document. They hope this effort will stress the importance of preserving Pittsfield's rich baseball legacy that includes Waconah Park. Efforts made by Bouton and others to preserve this legacy are illustrated in Bouton's latest literary work: Foul Ball: My Life and Hard Times Trying to Save an Old Ballpark.
In a discussion on SABR-L, SABR’s members-only listserv, Thorn reiterated that the actual assertion, clearly articulated at the press conference, is that the 'Pittsfield Prohibition' is North America's first recorded mention of a game called "baseball" (not base or barres or prisoners' base or other games that more resembled tag than baseball; the other Pittsfield-prohibited bat-and ball games, wicket, cricket, and bat-ball, are distinct games and not baseball). In his comments Thorn added, “Of course we knew about Jane Austen and Mary Lepell and John Newbery, and in an interview last night with the BBC I was confronted with the old assertion that baseball of course was a British game deriving from rounders. While I was obliged to be polite, I am no longer sure that baseball may not have preceded rounders as well as cricket, and that stool ball is the mother of all English-based bat and ball games.”
To help understand where the 1791 Pittsfield document stands in the development of the game, here is a timeline put together by John Thorn and Thomas R. Heitz:
Chronology of Early Bat and Ball Games
2000 B.C. - A.D. Ancient cultures—Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians—play primitive stick and ball games for recreation, fertility rites and religious rituals.
1500 B.C. Wall inscriptions in Egyptian royal tombs depict games using bats and balls.
900 A.D. Mayan Indians play stick and ball games in ceremonial courts in Chichen Itza, Mexico
1085 Stool ball, a primitive stick and ball game, and a forerunner of rounders and cricket, is mentioned in England’s Domesday Book.
1200’s-1300’s Primitive bat and ball games are used in Easter religious observances in France.
1598 “After dinner all the youthes go into the fields to play at the bal…. The schollers of euery schoole haue their ball, or baston, in their hands: the auncient and wealthy men of the Citie come foorth on horsebacke to see the sport of the young men, and to take part in the pleasure in beholding their agilitie.” From John Stow's Survey of London, first published in 1598.
1621 (Christmas Day) Governor Bradford finds the men of Plymouth Plantation, Massachusetts, “frolicking in ye street, at play openly; some at pitching ye ball, some at stoole ball and shuch-like sport.” (Of Plimouth Plantation, Memoirs of William Bradford, 1620-1647, first published in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1856.)
1672 In his memoirs, the Rev. Thomas Wilson, a Puritan divine of Maidstone, England, states: “Maidstone was formerly a very profane town, in as much as I have seen morrice-dancing, cudgel-playing, stool-ball, crickets, and many other sports openly and publicly indulged in on the Lords Day.”
1700’s Variants of stick and ball games in England and North America include “Prisoners’ Base, “Abbot’s Bases,” “Cat,” “Courts Base,” “Prison Bars,” and “King of the Mark.”
1744 John Newbery’s A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, published in England, contains a wood-cut illustration showing boys playing “baseball” and a rhymed description of the game.
1748 Lady Hervey (Mary Leppell) describes in a letter the activities of the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales: “....diverting themselves with baseball, a play all who are or have been schoolboys are well acquainted with.”
(snip/...)
http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,739,34,0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Cultural tunnelvision can be limiting.