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play [9 items], “Bat-Ball”
and “Bat-and-Ball” References [New: 20
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State Ballplaying [38 items],
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Cricket in North America [New: 126 entries], Famous People with
Links to Ballplaying [69 items], Female play [31
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Ballplaying [33 items], Ballplaying in the U.S. Military
[New: 25 items], Ballplaying as Reflected in Narrative Fiction
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Before the Knickerbockers [58 items], A Few Oddball Games [6
items], Ballplaying Outside
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items], English Rounders
[42 items], Ballplaying in the American South
[New:14 items], Ballplaying in St. Louis and Southern Illinois [New: 21 items], Stoolball [58
items], Town Ball
[46 items], the game of Wicket [57 items],
and Ballplaying in Wisconsin [New: 6 items]. New Entries Only: To browse the 190 newest [April 2010]
entries, go here. Re-ordered Version 10: For a
version of the 2008 Chronology that lists entries in chronological order
within the calendar years 1844-1861, go here. |
Version 11, updated April
2010
The Protoball Working Chronology of
Early Ball Play --
2500BC through 1862AD
Project History: This chronology originated with an initial listing by John Thorn and Tom Heitz, one that included about 70 entries. We took that popular set and had added another 200 entries by 2004, always adding formal citations where we could, so that investigators could recheck original data as needed. About 50 ofthese items came from previously uncollected references in a prize-winning paper by
Tom Altherr. In 2005, David Block’s landmark Baseball Before We Knew It was published, furnishing over 150 new entries for subsequent versions of the Protoball chronology. Researchers, many of them subscribers to the SABR “19CBB” listserve, have since added hundreds more. Version 11 adds about 190 new items, raising the total to about 1150 entries. Over 50 of these new entries are taken from Bill Ryczek’s new book, Baseball’s First Inning.
Scope: The Protoball list
includes entries for what we here term “safe haven” ball games
It’s a Work in Progress: This chronology is a work in progress. Your contributions are welcome in completing and emending it. Our hope is to ultimately create a searchable file of useful primary information on the evolution of safe-haven ballgames. For more information, to make suggestions, or to add to the chronology, contact Larry McCray at Lmccray@mit.edu.
Key: Serial numbers for the entries comprise the year of the reported event [for example, “1820s” means “in the 1820’s,” and “1823c” means “circa 1823”] and an identifying numerical suffix. The reader should note the unavoidable imprecision in assigning some dates; for example, if a memoirist who was born in 1813 reports that he played ball as a youth, the date is probably recorded as “1823c,” but could obviously be a few years off either way. The reader should habitually take caution in the long-time memories of the dates, if not the facts, of reflective accounts; after all, neurologists now tell us that the human memory is not an indelible digital storage device. Entries for any one year are not listed in chronological sequence.
Please Contribute Comments, Data, and Corrections: Reader comments are especially welcome to fill information needs for open queries that follow the term “Note:” within an entry.
Important Caveat on the Authenticity of Entries: The Protoball Project includes published claims for historical events associated with the evolution of baseball. Some of these claims have been questioned – and some ridiculed -- within today’s research community. Instead of withholding such claims [which lay forever unchallenged in published sources] , we include most of them, noting any current doubts as to their reliability in “Caution” and “Caveat” notations. The reader should not take the appearance of an item in the Chronology to imply our endorsement of the authenticity of that item. We welcome communications from you about listed claims that you find questionable in light of historical evidence.
Access to Protoball File Information: If you are writing about early ballplaying, for publication or for a term paper, say, we will be pleased to supply facsimiles of material from our paper files on our entries. For large requests, we ask that you cover our out-of-pocket expenses for photocopying and mailing. Upon request, we are also pleased to consult the contents of the Buzz McCray Collection of books, which amount to about 15 shelf-feet of books and papers, all of which are listed on Protoball’s Buzz McCray Bibliography on Early Ballplaying.
How the Chronology
Grew From 70 Entries to its Current Size
-----------------------------------------
The Protoball Chronology – Version 11
BC2500C.1 – “Tip cats” Found in Egyptian Ruins
Writing in 1891, Stewart Culin reported “the
discovery by Mr. Flinders-Petrie of wooden ‘tip cats’ among the
remains of Rahun, in the Fayoom,
Culin, Stewart, “Street Games of Boys in
BC2400C.1 – Egyptian Text Has “Strike the Ball” Reference
“The earliest known references to seker-hemat
Piccione, Peter, “Pharaoh at the Bat,”
BC2000.1 -- 2000 BC to 0 BC – The Ball in Ancient Play
Ancient cultures—Lydians, Persians, Greeks,
Romans, and Egyptians—play primitive stick and ball games for recreation,
fertility rites and religious rituals.
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport
Press, 1947], pp. 8-21
BC2000c.2 – 1913 Text: “
“Recent excavations near
William S. Walsh, A Handy Book of Curious
Information, (J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1913), page 83. .
Available via Google Books search “to light small
balls,” 1/27/2010. Query: Does recent scholarship agree that these
were balls, were used in sport, and date to 2000BC? Is there further evidence about their
role in Egyptian life?
BC1500C.1 – 1500 to 700 BC -- Mexican Game Believed to Use Rubber Ball, Bat
According to SABR member César González,
“There are remains of rubber balls found since the time of the Olmeca
culture between 1500 and 700 BC.”
He reports that it is believed that one of the earliest Mesoamerican
games was played with a stick.
Email from César
González, 12/6/2008 Note:
Can we add sources for these points?
BC1460.1 – Egyptian Tomb Inscriptions Show Bats, Balls
Wall inscriptions in Egyptian royal tombs depict games
using bats and balls.
According to Egyptologist Peter Piccione, “A
wall relief at the
Per Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport
Press, 1947], p. 20. Note:
BC750.1 -- 750 BC to 150 AD --
Ballplay in Ancient
The Greeks, famous for their athletics, played several
ball games. In fact the Greek
gymnasium ["palaistra”] was often known to include a special room
[“sphairiteria”] for ballplaying . . . a “sphaira”
being a ball. Pollux [ca 180 AD]
lists a number of children’s ball games, including games that loosely
resemble very physical forms of keepaway and rugby, and the playing of a
complicated form of catch, one that involved feints to deceive other players.
The great physician Galen wrote [ca. 180 AD]
especially fondly of ballplaying and its merits, and seems to have seen it as
an adult activity. He advised that
“the most strenuous form of ball playing is in no way inferior to other
exercises.” Turning to milder
forms of ball play, he said “I believe that in this form ball playing is
also superior to all the other exercises.” His partiality to ballplaying stemmed in
part from its benefit for the whole body, not just the legs or arms, as was the
case for running and wrestling.
As far as we are aware, Greek ball games did not
include any that involved running among bases or safe havens, or any that
involved hitting a ball with a club or stick
Source:
Stephen G. Miller, Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources, [
BC700C.1 – Pitching in the Bible?
”He will surely wind you around and around, and
throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will die . . . “ Isaiah 22:18.
The word “ball” appears only twice in the
Bible, and the lesser one refers to the ball of the foot of a beast [Leviticus
11:27]. The Isaiah usage was the inspiration for a January
1905 news article headed, “Played Baseball in Bible Times: The Prophet Isaiah
Made the only reference to the Pastime to be Found in the Holy
Writ.” [The Hamilton [Ont] Spectator – from a
clipping in the Origins file at the
Isaiah’s prophesies were written [in Hebrew]
late in the eighth century BC. A
compilation of 15 English translations [accessed at http://bible.cc/isaiah/22-18.htm
on 12/29/10] shows that most of them summon the image of an angry God
hurling the miscreant, like a ball, far far away. [One exception, however, cites a wound
turban, not a ball.] A literal
translation is unrevealing: “And thy coverer covering, wrapping round,
Wrappeth thee round, O babbler, On a land broad of sides – there thou
diest.” Caveat: we have little assurance that Isaiah actually referred to a
ball, or even to the act of throwing. Query: could a Hebrew reader or a Bible scholar
among you clarify this question?
BC 100.1 – Historian Dates Early Cricket to 100BC – Others Disagree
In
his 1912 article “The History of Cricket” [in Pelham and Warner, Imperial
Cricket
Bateman,
Anthony,” ‘More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;
‘Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport in History, v. 23, 1
370C.1 –
In his Confessions,
Augustine of Hippo – later
Saint
Augustine’s Confessions, Book
One, text supplied by Dick McBane, February 2008. Note:
Can historians identify the “game of ball” that Augustine might
have played in the fourth Century?
Are the translations to “game of ball,” “games,”
and “sport” still deemed accurate?
640s.1 – Medieval Writer: Saint Cuthbert [b. 634c] “Pleyde atte balle”
Mulling on whether the ball came to England in
Anglo-Saxon days, Strutt reports “the author of a manuscript in Trinity
College, Oxford, written in the fourteenth century and containing the life of
Saint Cuthbert, says of him, that when young, ‘he pleyde atte balle with
the children that his felawes [fellows] were.’ On what authority this information is
established I cannot tell.”
Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of
the People of England,
Note: The claim of this unidentified manuscript seems
weak. As Strutt notes, the
venerable Bede wrote poetic and prose accounts of the life of Cuthbert around
715-720 A.D., and made no mention of ballplaying. That a scholar would find evidence seven
centuries later would be surprising. Warton later cites the poem as from Oxford
MSS number Ivii, and he also places its unidentified author in the fourteenth
century, but he doesn’t the veracity of the story line. The poem describes an angel sent from
heaven to dissuade Cuthbert from playing such an “ydell” [idle]
pastime. Warton, Thomas, The History of English Poetry from the Close
of the Eleventh Century to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century
824.1 -- 15-Year-Old Chinese Emperor Criticized for Excessive Ball-playing
Ching Tsung, was the new Chinese emperor at the age of
15. “As soon as he could escape from the morning levee, the young
Emperor rushed off to play ball. His habits were well known in the city,
and in the summer of 824 someone suggested to a master-dyer named Chang Shao
that, as a prank, he should slip into the Palace, lie on the Emperor’s
couch and eat his dinner, ‘for nowadays he is always away, playing ball
or hunting.’” The prank was carried out, but those prankish
dyers . . . well, they died as a result.
Waaey, Arthur, The Life and Times of Po Chu-I, 772-846
[Allen and Unwin,
900.1 – Mayan Games Played
at
Mayan Indians play stick and ball games in ceremonial
courts in
Note: This
source may be Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins
of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 201. And
1000C.1 –
“Batting” Games in
Is his 1941 paper “Battingball Games” [Reprinted as Appendix
6 in Block, Baseball Before We Knew it, pp. 261 ff], Per Maigaard wrote:
“The oldest complete account of a Battingball game is that of Gutsmuth in 1796. From older times we only hear about Batting without further explanation, the
oldest being from the 11th century in
The original source for Maigaard’s paper is given as Genus, volume 5 (December 1941), pages
57-72. The paper traces the
evolution and typology of batting/running games like rounders and longball,
which Maigaard sees as having taken advanced form in
1086.1 –
Form of Stool Ball Possibly Found in Domesday Book in Norman England
Stool ball, a stick and ball game and a forerunner of rounders and cricket,
is apparently mentioned in the Domesday Book as “bittle-battle.”
Note: This source is Henderson, Robert W., Ball,
Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p.
75. However,
Note: We need to confirm whether the Domesday Book actually uses the term “bittle-battle,” “stool ball,” or what. We also should try to ascertain views of professional scholars on the interpretations of the Book. Martin Hoerchner advises that the British Public Records Office may, at some point, make parts of the Domesday Book available online.
1100s.1 –
“Pagan” Ball Rites Observed in
Note: This
source appears to be Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The
Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 37-38. Page 37
refers to an 1165 prohibition and page 38 mentions 12th and 13th
Century Easter rites. Henderson identifies two sources for the page 38
statement: Beleth, J., “Rationale Divinorum Officiorum,” in Migne,
J. P., Patrologiae Curius Completus, Ser 2, Vol. 106, pp. 575-591
[Paris, 1855], and Durandus, G., “Rationale Divinorum Officiorum,”
Book VI, Ch 86, Sect. 9 [Rome, 1473]...Henderson does not say that these rites
involved the use of sticks.
1189.1 –
“Unconfirmed” Report of a Stoolball Reference by Iscanus
There is “an unconfirmed report which was published in the
beginning of the Century quoting one Joseph Iscanus, of
National Stoolball Association, “A Brief History of
Stoolball,” page 2. This
mimeo, available in NSA files, has no date or author, but has one internal
reference to an 1989 source, so it must be fairly recent. It contains no hint on the source of the
1189 claim or how it has been assessed. Note: Is it now possible to further pursue
this claim using online resources?
The 1189 claim appears nowhere else in available writings about
stoolball.
However, some cite a Joseph Iscanus couplet: “The youth at cricks
did play/Throughout the livelong day/” as an indicator of early
cricket. However, the online source
of this rhyme does not give a source.
Very murky, no? Query: what do leading cricket
historians say of this alleged reference?
1200s.1 – Bat and Ball Game Illustration Appears in English Genealogical Roll
“The [1301 -- see below] illustration is a very
early depiction of the game we know as baseball, but it’s probably not
the first. In 1964, a writer named Harry Simmons cited an English bat and
ball picture from a genealogical roll of the Kings of England up to Henry III,
who died in 1269.”
Baltimore Sun
article on the Ghistelle Calendar [see entry for 1301]
1205.1 -- “Ball” Rolls into the English Language
Scholars report that the Chronicle of Britain
[1205] contained the words “Summe heo driuen balles wide . . .”
which they see as “the first known use of the word ball in the
sense of a globular body that is played with.” The source? Old
Norse, by way of Middle English. [Old High German had used ballo and
pallo, but the English didn’t use “ball” in those
days.] The source does not say whether people in
Source: Wikipedia entry on “ball,”
accessed
1255.1 – Spanish Painting Seen as Earliest Depiction of Ballplaying
The
book
Email
from Ron Gabriel, July 10, 2007.
Ron also has supplied a quality color photocopy of this plate, which was
the subject of his presentation at the 1974 SABR convention. Note:
can we specify the painting and its creator? Can we learn how baseball historians and
others interpret this artwork?
1299.1 – Prince of Wales Plays “Creag,” Seen By Some as a Cricket Precursor
Cashman, Richard, “Cricket,” in David
Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient
Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 87.
1300s.1 – Trapball Played
in the
Trevithick, Alan, “Trapball,” in David
Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient
Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 421.
1300s.2 – Edward III Prohibits Playing of Club-Ball.
“The recreations prohibited by proclamation in
the reign of Edward III, exclusive of the games of chance, are thus specified;
the throwing of stones, wood, or iron; playing at hand-ball, foot-ball,
club-ball, and camucam, which I take to have been a species of goff . . .
.” Edward III reigned from 1327 to 1377. The actual term for
“club-ball” in the proclamation was, evidently,
“bacculoream.”
This appears to be one of only two direct references
to “club-ball” in the literature. See #1794.2, below.
Caveat:
David Block argues that, contrary to Strutt’s contention [see #1801.1,
below], club ball may not be the common ancestor of cricket and other
ballgames. See David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages
105-107 and 183-184. Block says
that “pilam bacculoream” translates as “ball play with a
stick or staff.” Note: We seem not to really know what
“camucam” was. Nor, of course,
how club ball was played, since the term could have denoted a form of tennis or
field hockey or and early form of stoolball or cricket. It’s odd that no specific year is
assigned to this proclamation, and that Strutt cites no reference for it.
1300s.3 --
Stoolball Said to Originate Among
“Stoolball is a ball game that dates back to the 14th
century, originating in
Source: Wikipedia entry on “Stoolball,” accessed
1/25/2007. Note: this source does not credit bittle-battle [see entry
1086.1] as an earlier form of stoolball.
It gives no citations for the evidence of the founding date. The
Wikipedia entry is compatible with entry #1330.1, below, but evidently does not
credit 1330 as the likely time of stoolball’s appearance.
1301.1 – Ghistelles Calendar Depicts Vigorous-Looking Bat/Ball Game
A manuscript obtained in 1999 by the
Schoettler, Carl, “The Old, Old, Old Ball
Game,”
1310.1 – Documents Said to Describe Baseball-like Romanian Game of Oina
According
to an otherwise unidentified clip in the Origins file at the Giamatti Center,
an AP article datelined Bucharest Romania [and which appeared in the Oneonta Times on March 29, 1990], the
still popular Romanian game of oina can be traced back to a [unspecified]
document dating to the year 1310.
The game itself “was invented by shepherds in the first
century.”
The article is evidently based on an interview with
Cristian Costescu, who sees baseball as “the American pastime derived
from the ancient game of oina.”
Oina reportedly has eleven players per side, an all-out-side-out rule,
tossed pitches, nine bases describing a total basepath of 120 yards, plugging of
baserunners, the opportunity for the fielding side to score points, and a bat
described as similar to a cricket bat.
Costescu is reported to have served as head of the Romanian Oina
Federation in the years when baseball was banned in
The Oneonta Times headline is “Play
Oina! Romanians Say Their Game
Inspired Creation of Baseball.”
Note: Can we find additional documentation of
oina’s rules and history? Is
the 1310 documentation available in English translation? Have others followed the recent fate of
oina and the work of Costescu?
1310c.2 – A Drawing of “A Game of Ball,” with a Player in a Batting Pose
A 1915 book on ancient British schools includes a
drawing dated circa 1310. It shows
two players, one clad in a garment with broad horizontal stripes. Both players hold clubs, and the player
in stripes appears ready to swing at a melon-sized ball. The other player appears to be preparing
to fungo the ball . . . or, conceivably, toss it with his left hand, to the
striped player. The
illustration’s caption is “A Game of Ball, Stripes vs. Plain, c.
1310.” The
Posted by Mark Aubrey to the 19CBB listserve on
1/10/2008. The 1915 source,
available in full text on Google Books, is A. F. Leach, The Schools of Medieval England
1330.1 – Vicar of Winkfield Advises Against Bat/Ball Games in Churchyards; First Stoolball Reference?
“Stoolball was played in England as early as
1330, when William Pagula, Vicar of Winkfield, near Windsor, wrote in Latin a
poem of instructions to parish priests, advising them to forbid the playing of
all games of ball in churchyards: “Bats and bares and suche play/Out of
chyrche-yorde put away.”
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop:
The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 74. Note: The
Vicar’s caution was translated in 1450 by a Canon, John Myrc.
1344.1 -- Manuscript Shows a Club-and-Ball Game with Stool-like Object
“A manuscript of 1344 in the Bodleian Library at
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport
Press, 1947], pp. 130-131.
1363.1 -- Englishmen Forbidden to Play Ball; Archery Much Preferred
Edward III wrote to the Sheriff of
A. R. Myers, English
Historical Documents
Caveat: The
content of this entry resembles that of #1300s.2 above, and both refer to a
restriction imposed by Edward III. However that entry, stemming from Strutt,
refers to “club-ball” instead of “stick-ball,” and
identifies the Latin as “pilam bacculoream,” not “pila
cacularis.” It is possible
that both refer to the same source.
Also: the letter to
Note: this entry replaces the former entry #1365.1:
“In 1365 the sheriffs had to forbid able-bodied men playing ball games
as, instead, they were to practice archery on Sundays and holidays.” Source: Hassall, W. O., [compiler],
“How They Lived: An Anthology of Original Accounts Written Before
1485” [Blackwell, Oxford University Press, 1962], page 285.
Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
1385.1 -- English Boys Play Ball “To the Grave Peril of Their Souls”
A letter written by Robert Braybroke laid out the
palpable risks of ball-playing: “Certain [boys], also, good for
nothing in their insolence and idleness, instigated by evil minds and busying
themselves rather in doing harm than good, throw and shoot stones, arrows, and
different kinds of missiles at the rooks, pigeons, and other birds nesting in
the walls and porches of the church and perching [there]. Also they play
ball inside and outside the church and engage in other destructive games there,
breaking and greatly damaging the glass windows and the stone images of the
church . . . This they do not without great offense to God and our church and
to the prejudice and injury or us as well as to the grave peril of their
souls.” And the sanction for such play? “We . . .
proclaim solemnly that any malefactors whatever of this kind [including
churchyard merchants as well as young ballplayers] whom it is possible to catch
in the aforesaid actions after this our warning have been and are excommunicated
. . . .”
Crow, Martin M., and Clair C. Olson, eds.,
“Chaucer’s World” [Columbia University Press,
1393.1 – Disconfirmed Poetry Lines Said to Denote
Stoolball in
According to a 2007 article in a Canadian magazine,
there is poetry in which a milkmaid calls to another, “Oi, Rosie, coming
out to Potter’s field for a whack at the old stool?” The article continues: “The year was 1393. The place was
The article, by
Ruth Tendulkar, is titled “The Great-Grandmother of Baseball and
Cricket,” and appeared in the May/June 2007 issue of The Canadian Newcomers Magazine. We have been unable to find addition
source details from the author or the magazine.
Sourcehttp://www.cnmag.ca,
as accessed 9/6/2007.
Caution: The editor of The
Canadian Newcomers Magazine informed us on 1/10/2088 that the Tendulkar
piece “was strictly an entertainment piece rather than an academic
piece.” We take this to say
that the verse is not authentic.
Email from Dale Sproule, Publisher/Editor.
1450.1 -- John Myrc Repeats Warning Against Ball Play in the Churchyard, Including “Stoil Ball”
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It [page
165], cites the Myrc work, “early poetic instruction of priests,”
as “How thow schalt thy paresche preche,”
1450.2 – Stoolball Dated by NSA to 1450 in “Don
Quixote”
“[Stoolball] is
mentioned in the classic book Don
Quixote.”
Source: NSA website,
accessed April 2007. Note: we need a fuller citation and the
key text. It is possible that this
entry confuses D’Urfey’s 1694 play about Don Quixote [see Entry
#1694.1, below] with the Cervantes masterpiece.
1470c.1 –Editor Sees Stoolball in Verse on Bachelorhood
“In al this world
“In every place he is loved over alle/Among
maydens grete and smale-/In daunsyng, in pipyngs, and rennyng at the balle,/In
every place wher-so he go.
“They leten lighte by housebonde-men/Whan they
at the balle renne;/They casten ther love to yonge men/In every place wher-so
they go.
“Then seyn maydens, "Farewel, Jakke,/Thy
love is pressed al in thy pak;/Thou berest thy love bihynde thy back,/In every
place wher-so thou go."
Robert Stevick, ed., One Hundred Middle English
Lyrics
1477.1 – List of Banned Games May Include Distant Ancestors of Cricket?
A Westminster statute, made to curb gambling by rowdy
soldiers upon their return from battle, reportedly imposed sanctions for
“playing at cloish, ragle, half-bowls, handyn and handoute, quekeborde,
and if any person permits even others to play at such games in his house or
yard, he is to be imprisoned for three years; as also he who plays at such game,
to forfeit ten pounds to the king,
and be imprisoned for two years.”
Observations Upon the Statutes, Chiefly the More
Ancient, from Magna Charta to the Twenty-first [Year] of James the First (
The 1766 author adds: “This is, perhaps, the
most severe law which has ever been made in any country against gaming, and
some of the forbidden sports seem to have been manly exercises, particularly
the handing and handoute, which I should suppose to be a kind of cricket, as the
term hands is still retained in that
game [for what would later be known as innings]
An1864 writer expands further: “Half-bowls was played with pins
and one-half of a sphere of wood, upon the floor of a room. It is said to be still played in
Hertfordshire under the name of rolly-polly. Hand-in and hand-out was a ring-game,
played by boys and girls, like kissing-ring [footnote 31].” John Harland,
A Volume of Court Leet Records of the Manor of
1478.1 – Du Cange Mentions “Criquet” Game in his Glossary
While others see cricket as taking its name from the
term for a staff, or stick, “[T]he famous New English Dictionary
favors a word used as a [game’s] target: criquet, Du Cange
quotes this word in a manuscript of 1478: ‘The suppliant came to a place
where a game of ball
Du Cange, Glossarium Mediae ET Infimae Latinatis
[
1478.2 – Parliament Speaks: Jail or Fine for Unlawful Gameplaying
An Act of Parliament forbade unlawful games as
conducive to disorder and as discouraging the practice of archery. The games that were forbidden, under
penalty of two years’ imprisonment or a fine of ten pounds, were these:
quoits, football, closh, kails, half-bowls, hand-in and hand-out,
chequer-board.
This Act is cited as Rot. Parl. VI, 188. Information provided by John Thorn,
email of 2/27/2008.
Caveat: The list of proscribed games is similar to the Edward
III’s prohibition [see #1363.1 above] adding “hand-in and
hand-out” in place of agame translated as “club-ball” or
“stick-ball. We are uncertain
as to whether hand-in and hand-out is the ancestor of a safe-haven game.
1494c.1 -- Christopher Columbus and the Coefficient of Restitution
“When Christopher Columbus revisited
Holland Thompson, “Charles Goodyear and the
History of Rubber,” at http://inventors.about.come/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/rubber_2.htm,
accessed 1/24/2007. Note: We need better sources for the
1500s.1 -- Ballplaying Permitted
at
“Parisian legislators were more sympathetic with
regard to games than their English contemporaries. Even the Founder of
the Cisterian College of St Bernard contemplated that permission might be
obtained for games, though not before dinner or after the bell rang for
vespers. A sixteenth century code of statutes for the College of Tours,
while recording the complaints of the neighbors about the noise made by the
scholars playing ball
Rait, Robert S., Life in the Medieval University
[Cambridge University Press, 1912], page 83. Submitted by John Thorn,
10/12/2004.
1500s.2 –
Queen Elizabeth’s Dudley Plays Stoolball at Wotton Hill?
According to a manuscript written in the 1600s, Robert Dudley, the Earl
of Leicester and his “Trayne”
“came to Wotton, and thence to Michaelwood Lodge . . . and thence
went to Wotton Hill, where hee paid a match at stobball.”
Note: Is it possible to determine the
approximate date of this event?
Queen Elizabeth I named her close associate [once rumored to be her
choice as husband] Dudley to became Earl of Leicester in the 1564, and he died
in 1588. The Wotton account was written by John Smyth of Nibley somewhere in
his
1523.1 –
Baron’s Trespass Records Mention Stoball
“Item, quod petrus frankeleyne vid posuit iiiixx ovesin le stoball
field contra ordinacionem.”
Source: National Stoolball Association, “A Brief History of
Stoolball,” [mimeo, author and date unspecified], page 2. This wording is reportedly found in
“an extract from the rolls of the Court Baron of the Royal Manor of Kirklington,
belonging to the Duchy of Lancaster
1533.1 – Skelton Poem Traces Cricket to Flemish Immigrants?
“O lodre of Ipocrites/ Nowe shut vpp your
wickets,/ And clappe to your clickettes/ A! Farewell, kings for
crekettes!”
“The Image of Ipocrisie” (1533) attributed
to John Skelton. This verse is
interpreted as showing no sympathy to Flemish weavers who settled in southern
and eastern
1538.1 -- Easter Ball Play at
Churches Ends in
“Certain types of ball games had a prominent place
in heathen rituals and were believed to promote fertility. Even after
Christianity had gained the ascendancy over the older religion, ball continued
to be played in the churchyard and even within the church at certain
times. In
Brewster, Paul G., American Nonsinging Games [
1540.1 – A Pitcher, a Catcher and a Batter in a Golf History Book?
Cary Smith [ZinnBeck@aol.com]
has noted an alluring illustration in a 1540 publication, and we seek
additional input on it. In a
posting to the 19CBB listserve in March 2008,
“On the British Library web site in the turning
pages section there is a book called the Golf Book, but it is labeled as
‘Flemish Masters in Miniature.’ On page seven of the book there is a
small grisalle border at the bottom.
It looks like what today would be considered a pitcher, catcher, and
batter. The book is from 1540. To access the web site you will need to
have Flash running. If on a
Macintosh that is intel based you will need to click the Rosetta button in the
info window of your web browser.”
Note: can you help us
interpret this artwork?
The URL is http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html.
1550.1 – No English Reference Claimed for the Word ”Cricket” Found Before 1550
“The medieval origin of the national game of the
English is beyond doubt, but not so its
From an unidentified photocopy in the “Origins
of Baseball” file at the
1550c.2 – Cricket Play Recalled at
[Cf #1598.3 below.] A 1598 trial in the Surrey town of
Brown, J. F., The Story of the
1555c.1 -- English Poet Condones Students’ Yens “To Tosse the Ball, To Rene Base, Like Men of War”
“To shote, to bowle, or caste the barre,
To play tenise, or tosse the ball,
Or to rene base, like men of war,
Shall hurt thy study naught at all.”
Crowley, Robert, “The Scholar’s
Lesson,” circa 1555, in J. M. Cowper, The Select Works of Robert
Crowley [N. Truber, London, 1872], page 73. Submitted by John Bowman,
7/16/2004. Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough
to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It,
see pages 230 and 312.
1562.1 -- Cricket Forerunner an “Unlawful Game?”
“The Malden Corporation Court Book of
1562 contains a charge against John Porter alias Brown, and a servant, for
‘playing an unlawful game called “clycett.”’”
Brookes, Christopher, English Cricket: the Game and
its Players Through the Ages
1564.1 –
Formal Complaint in
“1564 – complaints were made to the justices sitting at the
midsummer session, at
M. S. Russell-Goggs, “Stoolball in
1565.1 -- Bruegel’s “Corn Harvest” Painting Shows Meadow Ballgame
“We had paused right in front of [the Flemish
artist] Bruegel the Elder’s “Corn Harvest”
From John Thorn, "Play's the Thing,"
1567.1 -- English Translation of Horace Refers to “the Stoole Ball”
“The stoole ball, top, or camping ball/If suche
one should assaye/As hath no mannour skill therein,/Amongste a mightye
croude,/Theye all would screeke unto the frye/And laugh at hym aloude.”
Drant, Thomas, Horace His Arte of Poetrie, Pistles,
and Satyrs Englished, and to the Earle of Ormounte, [
1570c.1 – Five Indicted for Stoolball Play on Sunday
“A few years later [than 1564], at the Easter
Sessions in the same town [Malden, Surrey], one Edward Anderkyn and four others
were indicted for playing stoolball on Sunday.”
M. S. Russell-Goggs, “Stoolball in
1575.1 -- Gascoigne’s Poem “The Fruits of War” Refers to Tut-ball
Gascoigne, George, The Posies of George Gascoigne
Esquire, Corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Authour [
1583.1 -- Pre-teens Risk Dungeon Time For Selves, or Their Dads, by Playing Ball
“Whereas this a great abuse in a game or games
used in the town called “Gede Gadye
or the Cat’s Pallet, and Typing or hurling the Ball,”
– that no mannor person shall play at the same games, being above the age
of seven years, wither in the churchyard or in any of the streets of this town,
upon pain of every person so playing being imprisoned in the Doungeon for the space of two hours; or
else every person so offending to pay 6 [pence] for every time. And if they have not [wherewithal] to
pay, then the parents or masters of such persons so offending to pay the said 6
[pence] or to suffer the like imprisonment.” [Similar language is found in 1579 entry
[page 148], but it lacked the name “Typing” and did not mention a
ball.]
John Harland, editor, Court Leet Records of the
Manor of Manchester in the Sixteenth Century (Chetham Society, 1864), page
156. Accessed 1/27/10 via Google
Books search: “court leet” half-bowls. Note: The game gidigadie is not known to
us, but the 1864 editor notes elsewhere [page 149, footnote 61] that was
“not unlikely” to be tip-cat, and he interprets
“typing” as tipping. As
later described [see “Tip-Cat” and “Pallet” at http://retrosheet.org/Protoball/Glossary.htm],
tip-cat could be played with a cat or a ball, and could involve running among
holes as bases. Caveat: we do not yet know what the
nature of the proscribed game was in Elizabethan times.
1585c.1 -- Stoole-ball, Nine Holes Included Among Country Sports
In a 1600 publication attributed to Samuel Rowlands
[died 1588], the fourth of six “Satires,” presents a catalog of
about 30 pastimes, including “play at stoole-ball,” and “play
at nine-holes.” Other
diversions include pitching the barre, foote-ball, play at base, and leap-frog.
Rowlands, Samuel, The Letting of Humour’s
blood in the head-vein
1586.1 –
“A time there is for
all, my mother often sayes/
When she with skirts tuckt
very hie, with gyrles at stoolball playes”
[Sir Philip?]
1586.2 – Possible Early Rounders Reference?
In his entry for Rounders,
W. C. Hazlitt speculates: “It is possible that this is the game which,
under the name of rownes
Hazlitt, W. C., Faiths
and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions, and Popular
Customs
1591.1 -- Early Spanish-English Dictionary Mentions the “Trapsticke”
Pericule [Percival], Richard, Bibliotheca
hispanica: containing a graamar, with a dictionarie in Spanish, English, and
Latine, gathered out of diuers good authors: very profitable for the studious
of the Spanish toong [
1592c.1 –
Moralist Lists Things for Scholars to Avoid, Including Playing “Stoole
Ball Among Wenches”
“Time of recreation is necessary, I graunt, and think as necessary
for schollers . . . as it is for any.
Yet in my opinion it were not fit for them to play at Stoole-ball among
wenches, nor at Mumchance or Maw with idle loose companions; not at trunks in
Guile-halls, nor to dance about Maypoles, nor to rufle in alehouses, nor to
carowse in tauernes, nor to steale deere, nor to rob orchards. Though who can deny that they may doe
these things, yea worse.”
Attributed to Dr. Rainoldes in J. P. Collier, ed., The Political
Decameron, or Ten Conversations on English Poets and Poetry [Constable and
Co., Edinburgh, 1820], page 257.
This passage is from the “ninth conversation” and covers low
practices during the reigns of
1592.2 --
“We present one Bottolph Wappoll, a continual gamester and one of
the very lewd behaviour, who being on Mayday last at stoolball in time of
Divine service one of our sidesmen came and admonished him to leave off playing
and go to church, for which he fell on him and beat him that the blood ran
about his ears.”
Source: National Stoolball
Association, “A Brief History of Stoolball,” [author and date
unspecified], page 2. The original
source is not supplied but is reported to have been a presentation from the parish
of
1598.1 – Youth Ball Games Widespread at London Schools.
“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 young men.”
Stow, John, Survey of London [first published
in 1598]. David Block [page 166]
gives the full title as A Survey of
1598.2 -- Italian-English Dictionary Includes Cat, Trap
Florio, John, A world of wordes or Most copious,
and exact dictionarie in Italian and English [
1598.3-- First Known Appearance of the Term “Cricket”
[Cf #1550c.2 above.] A 1598 trial in the Surrey town
of
Brown, J. F., The Story of the
1598.4 – Italian Dictionary’s “Cricket-a-wicket” doubted as reference to the Game of Cricket
“People have often regarded Florio’s
expression in his Italian Dictionary
A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket,
1600c.1 -- Austrian Physician
Reports on Batting/Running Game in
[A] Guarinoni, Hippolytis, Greuel der Verwustung
der menschlichen Gesschlechts [The horrors of the devastation of the human
race], [
[B] “German Schlagball [“hit the
ball”] is also similar to rounders.
The native claim that these games ‘have remained the games of the
Germanic peoples, and have won no popularity beyond their countries’
quite obviously does not accord with facts. It is enough to quote the conclusion of
a description of “hit the ball” by H. Guarnoni, who had a medical practice
in
Source: from page 111 of an unidentified photocopy in
the “Origins of Baseball” file at the
1600c.2 -- Shakespeare Mentions Rounders? Pretty Doubtful
“Shakespeare mentions games of
“base” and “rounders.
Lovett, Old Boston Boys, page 126.”
Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour
Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and
Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Caveat: We have not yet
confirmed that Lovett or Shakespeare used the term “rounders.” Gomme [page 80], among others,
identifies the Bard’s use of “base” in Cymbeline as a reference
to prisoner’s base, which is not a ball game. John Bowman, email of 5/21/2008, reports
that his concordance of all of Shakespeare’s words shows has no listing
for “rounders” . . . nor for “stoolball,” for that
matter [see #1612c.1, below], ‘tho that may because Shakespeare’s
authorship of Two Noble Kinsmen is not universally accepted by
scholars..
1609.1 – Polish Origins of
Baseball Perceived in
“Soon after the new year [1609], [we] initiated
a ball game played with a bat . . . . Most often we played this game on
Sundays. We rolled up rags to make
balls . . . Our game attracted the savages who sat around the field, delighted
with this Polish sport.”
The source is Zbigniew Stefanski, Memorial
Commercatoris [A Merchant’s Memoirs], (
“For your information and records, I am pleased
to inform you that after much research I have discovered that baseball was
introduced to
Letter from Matthew Baranski to the Baseball Hall of
Fame, March 23, 1975. [Found in the
Origins file at the
1610.1 – Very Early Cricket Match
A match is thought to have been played between the men
of
Contributed by Beth Hise January 12, 2010. Beth is in pursuit of the original
source of this claim. North
Downs is in
1611.1 -- French-English Dictionary Cites “Cat and Trap” and Cricket
Dictionary-maker R. Cotgrave translates “crosse” as “the
crooked staff wherewith boies play at cricket.”
“Martinet” [a device for propelling
large stones at castles] is defined as “the game called cat and
trap.”
Cotgrave, Randle, A Dictionarie of the French and
English Tongues [
Cricket historians Steel and Lyttelton: “Thanks to Cotgrave, then, we know
that in 1611 cricket was a boy’s game, played with a crooked bat. The club, bat, or staff continued to be
crooked or curved at the blade till the middle of the eighteenth century or
later: and till nearly 1720 cricket was mainly a game for boys.” A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket,
1612c.1 -- Play Attributed to Shakespeare Cites Stool-ball
A young maid asks her wooer to go with her. “What shall we do there,
wench?” She replies, “Why, play at stool-ball; what else is
there to do?”
Fletcher and Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen [London], Act V,
Scene 2, per W. W. Grantham, Stoolball Illustrated and How to Play It
[W. Speaight,
1613.1 -- His and Her Stool-ball Banter: Play or Foreplay?
“Ward: Can you play at shuttlecock forsooth?
Isabella: Ay, and stool-ball too, sir; I have great
luck at it.
Ward: Why, can you catch a ball well?
Isabella: I have catched two in my lap at one game
Ward: What, have you, woman? I must have
you learn to play at trap too, then y’are full and whole.”
Dutton, Richard Thomas, Women Beware Women and
Other Plays [Oxford University Press,
1614.1 -- Poet Yearns to “Goe to Stoole-Ball-Play”
Breton, Nicholas, I Would, and Would Not [
1615.1 – Stoole Ball Goes North with Early Explorer
“And some dayes heare
we stayed we shott at butts and bowe and arrows, at other tymes at stoole ball,
and some tymes of foote ball
William Baffin, from
“The Fourth Recorded Voyage of Baffin,” in C. M. Markham, ed., The
Voyages of William Baffin, 1612-1622, [Hakluyt Society, 1881], page
122. This voyage started in March
1615, and the entry is dated June?? 19th, 1615. The voyage was taken in hope of finding
a northwest passage to the East, but was thwarted by ice, and Baffin returned
to
1616c.1 -- Translation of Homer Depicts Virgins Playing Stool-Ball,
Disturbing Ulysses’ Snooze
Translator Chapman
described a scene in which several virgins play stool-ball near a river while
Ulysses sleeps nearby: “The Queene now
Chapman, George, The
whole works of Homer: prince of poets, in his Iliads, and Odysses [
Steel and Lyttelton
indicate that Chapman’s translation may date “as early as
1614,” and say report that Chapman calls the fragment “a stoolball
chance.” See A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket,
1617.1 -- King James’ Controversial “Book of Sports” Omits Mention of Ballplaying
Reacting to Puritans’ denunciations of Sabbath
recreations, James I in 1617 listed a large number of permitted Sunday
activities –including no ball games – and cited as unlawful only
“beare and Bull beatinge enterludes & bowlinge. . . .” Axon, Ernest, Notes of Proceedings. Volume
1 – 1616-1622-3
Another source lists the Sunday bans as
“Bull-baiting, bear-baiting, interludes, and bowls:” Keightley, Thomas, The History of
England, volume II
1619.1 -- Bawdy Poem Has Wenches Playing “With Stoole and
Ball”
“It was the day of
all dayes in the yeare/That unto Bacchus hath its dedication,/ . . . / When
country wenches play with stoole and ball,/And run at Barley-breake
until they fall:/And country lads fall on them, in such sort/That after forty
weekes the[sic] rew the sport.”
Anonymous, Pasquils
Palinodia, and His Progress to the Taverne; Where, After the Survey of the
Sellar, You Are Presented with a Pleasant Pynte of Poeticall Sherry
[London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 169, who
credits Henderson, page 74. Block notes that “Barley-Break”
[not a ball game] was, like stoole ball, traditionally a spring courtship
ritual in the English countryside.
1621.1 – Some Pilgrims
“Openly” Play “Stoole Ball” on Christmas Morning in
Governor Bradford describes Christmas Day 1621 at
Plymouth Plantation, MA, “most of this new-company excused them selves
and said it wente against their consciences to work on ye day. So ye Govr
tould them that if they made it mater of conscience, he would spare them till
they were better informed. So he led away ye rest and left them; but when
they came home at noone from their worke, he found them in ye street at play,
openly; some at pitching ye barr, and some at stoole-ball and shuch like sport.
. . . Since which time nothing hath been attempted that way, at least openly.”
Bradford, William, Of
1622.1 – Bad, Bad Batts!
A
Brookes, Christopher, English Cricket: the game and
its players through the ages
1629.1 -- Play Refers to Weakling Who Was “Beat . . . With a Trap Stick”
Shirley, James, The Wedding. As it was lately acted
by her Mauesties seruants at the Phenix at Drury Lane [
1629.2 – Curate Can’t Beat the Rap as Cricketer
“In 1629, having been censured for playing
‘at Cricketts,’ the curate of Ruckinge in
Bateman, Anthony,“’More Mighty than the
Bat, the Pen . . . ;‘
Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport in History, v. 23, 1
1630c.1 – “Ancient
“Any they dare
challenge for to throw the sleudge,/To Jumpe or leape over dich or hedge,/ To
wrastle, play at stooleball, or to Runne,/ To pitch the bar, or to shoote off a
Gunne/ To play at Loggets, nine holes, or ten pins. . . .[list continues,
mentioning stool ball once more at end.]”
This verse, titled “Ancient
Cheshire Games: Auntient customes in games used by boys and girles merily sett
out in verse,” is attributed to “Randle Holmes’s MSS Brit
Mus.” Is in Medium of Inter-communications for Literary Men, Artists,
Antiquaries, Genealogists, Etc, July – December 1856, page 487. Note: Can we learn why is this account
associated with 1630? This entry
needs to be reconciled with #1585.1 above.
Add online search detail?
1630c.2 – Stoolball Play Makes
“About 1630 a Puritan
records that ‘
M. S. Russell-Goggs,
“Stoolball in
1630c.3 – City Women’s Shrovetide Customs Include Stooleball
“In the early seventeenth century, an
1631.1 – Drama by Philip Massenger Refers to Cat-Stick
“Page: You, sirrah sheep’s-head/ With a
face cut on a cat-stick, do you hear?/ You, yeoman fewterer, conduct me to/ the
lady of the mansion, or my poniard/ Shall disembogue thy soul.”
“The Maid of Honour,” Scene 2, in The
Plays of Philip Massinger, Volume 1 (John Murray, London, 1830), page
327.
Notes written in 1830 by W. Gifford: “Cat-stick. This, I
believe, is what is now called a buck-stick,
used by children in the game of tip-cat, or kit-cat.” Query: Is it clear why an
abusive address like this would employ a phrase like “cut on a
cat-stick?” Does it imply,
for instance a disfigured or pock-marked visage?
1632.1 -- In
“The [preceding] reference to Fuchsius should be
to Institutiones 2.3.4: . . . ‘Whereby the habit of our German schoolboys
is most worthy of reprehension, who never take exercise except immediately
after food, either jumping or running or playing ball or quoits or taking part
in other exercises of a like nature; so that it is no surprise, seeing they
thus accumulate a great mass of crude humours, that they suffer from perpetual
scabies, and other diseases caused by vicious humours’:p. 337)”
1633c.1 – Ambiguous Reference to Stoole Ball Appears in a Drama
“At stoole ball I
have a North-west stripling shall deale with ever a boy in the
Cited in W. C. Hazlitt, Faiths
and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions and Popular
Customs [Reeves and Turner,
1634.1 – That Archbishop Laud, He Certainly
Doesn’t Laud Stoolball
“In his visitation
and reference to churchyards, he [Archbishop Laud, in 1634] is troubled because
‘several spend their time in stoolball.’”
M. S. Russell-Goggs,
“Stoolball in
Another source quotes Laud
as saying “This whole churchyard is made a receptacle for all ydle
persons to spend their time in stopball and such lyke recreacions.” OED, Abp Laud’s Visit, in 4th
Rep Hist. MSS Comm. App 144/1, provided by John Thorn, email of 6/11/2007. Note2:
is this from the same source?
1637.1 -- Conservative Protestants Decry Sunday Play, See Grave Danger in it
1637.2 -- Play Mentions Trap
Shirley, James, Hide Park: A Comedie [
1638.1 -- Bishop Sees Churchyard as Consecrated Ground: No Stool Ball, Drinkings, Merriments
Bishop Mantague admonishes Norwich Churchmen to
consider the churchyard as consecrated ground, “not to be profaned by
feeding and dunging cattle . . . . Much less is it to be unhallowed with
dancings, morrises, meetings at Easter, drinkings, Whitson ales, midsummer
merriments or the like, stool ball, football, wrestlings, wasters or
boy’s sports.”
Barrett, Jay Botsford, English Society in the
Eighteenth Century as Influence from Oversea [
1638.2 –
Archdeacon: Churchyards Are Not For Stoole-ball or “Other Profane
Uses”
“Have any playes,
feasts, banquets, suppers, churchales, drinkings, temporal courts or leets, lay
juries, musters, exercise of dauncing, stoole-ball, foot-ball, or the like, or
any other profane usage been suffered to be kept in your church, chappell, or
churchyard?
Attributed to Mr. Dr.
Pearson, Archdeacon of Suffolke, in Heino Pfannenschmid, Das Weihwasser
[Hahn’sche Hofbuchhandlung, Hannover, 1869], page 74n.
1640.1 – Stoolball Attracts Gentry, Rascals, Boys
“J. Smythe, in his Hundred
of Berkeley
M. S. Russell-Goggs,
“Stoolball in
1648.1 -- Short Herrick Poem Proposes a Wager on Stool-ball Game
“At Stool-ball, Lucia, let us
play,” offers the poet, then proposing that if he wins, he would
“have for all a kisse.”
Herrick, Robert, Hesperdes: or, the Works Both
Human and Divine of Robert Herrick, Esq. [London], page 280, per David
Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 171.
1652.1 -- Traveler in Wales Reports “Laudable” Sunday Games of “Trap, Cat, Stool-ball, Racket &c”
Taylor, John, A Short Relation of a Long Journey
Made Round or Ovall [
1653.1 -- Play Refers to Trapsticks
A character is asked how he might raise some needed
money: “If my woodes being cut down cannot fill this pocket, cut ‘em
into trapsticks.”
Middleton, Thomas, and William Rowley, The Spanish
Gipsie [
1653.2 – Early Use of “Cricket” Seen in Rabelais Translation
“So far as is known, the first mention [of the
word “cricket”] occurs in Sir Thomas Urquhart’s translation
of the works of Rabelais, published in London in 1653, where it is found
enumerated as one of the games of the Gargantua.”
Editorial, “The Pedigree of Cricket,” The Irish Times, 5/9/1931. Reprinted in The Times, 5/9/2001.
From the MCC Library collection.
Caveat: We now have at least four pre-1653 claims to the use
of “cricket” and similar terms: see #1598.3, #1598.4, #1611.1,
#1622.1, and #1629.2 above. Note: Rabelais’ “games of
Gargantua” is a list of over 200 games supposedly played at one sitting
by the fictional character Gargantua.
Urquhart’s translation includes several familiar pastimes,
including cricket, nine-pins, billiards, “tip and hurl” [?], prison
bars, barley-break, and the morris dance . . . along with many games that
appear to be whimsy and word-play [“ramcod ball,”
“nivinivinack,” and “the bush leap”]. Not included are: club ball, stick ball,
stoolball, horne billets, nine holes, hat ball, rounders, feeder, or base
ball. Francis Rabelais – Completely Translated into English by Urquhard
and Motteux
1656.1 – Dutch Prohibit
“Playing Ball,” Cricket on Sundays in New
In October 1656
Director-General Peter Stuyvesant announced a stricter Sabbath Law in New
Netherlands, including fine of a one pound Flemish for “playing
ball,” cricket, tennis, ninepins, dancing, drinking, etc. Source: 13: Doc Hist., Volume Iv,
pp.13-15, and Father Jogues’ papers in NY Hist. Soc. Coll., 1857, pp.
161-229, as cited in Manual of the Reformed Church in America
Note: It
would be useful to ascertain what Dutch phrase was translated as “playing
ball,” and whether the phrase denotes a certain type of ballplay.
The population of
1656.2 – Two English Counties Agree: Stoolball Gets “Too
Much Attention.”
“The game [Stoolball]
cropped up in 1656 in a pronouncement by the Counties of Cumberland and
Westmoreland which said that “too much attention was being paid to
‘shooting, playing at football, stoolball, wrestling.’”
SRA website, accessed
4/11/07. Note: we need a fuller citation and perhaps further text and
motivation for these pronouncements.
1656.3 – Cromwellians
Needlessly Ban Cricket from
Simon Rae writes that the “killjoy mentality
reached its zenith under the Puritans, during the Interregnum, achieving an
absurd peak when cricket was banned in
Simon Rae, It’s Not Cricket: A History of
Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game
1658.1 -- English Parish Rewards Informant for Ratting on Sunday Trap-baller
Nichols, John, Illustrations of the Manners and
Expences of Ancient Times in England [
1658.2 –
“Cricket was . . . emerging in a written sense, not
through the form of a celebratory discourse, but as the target of Puritan and
sabbatarian ire. Even in the first
reliable literary reference to cricket – in The Mysteries of Love and
Eloquence
Bateman, Anthony,“More Mighty than the Bat, the
Pen . . . ;‘ Culture,,
Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport in History, v. 23, 1
1659.1 -- Stuyvesant: No Tennis, Ball-Playing, Dice on Fast Day
“We shall interdict and forbid, during divine
service on the [fasting] day aforesaid, all exercise and games of tennis,
ball-playing, hunting, plowing and sowing, and moreover all unlawful practice
such as dice, drunkenness . . .”
proclaimed Peter Stuyvesant.
Stuyvesant was Director-General of New Netherlands.
1660c.1 – Village Life: The Men to Foot-Ball, Maids and Kids to Stoolball
The biography of a 17th century lord
includes “a nostalgic description of the little town of
“The town was then my grandfather’s . . . it
was always the custom for the youth of the town . . . to play [from noon when
chores ended] to milking time and supper at night. The men [went to play] football, and the
maids, with whom we children were commonly mixed, being not proof for the
turbulence of the other party, to stoolball and such running games as they
knew.” Dale B. J. Randall, Gentle
Flame: The Life and Verse of Dudley, Lord North
1660c.2 -- Ben Franklin’s Uncle Recalls Ballplaying On an English Barn
“That is the street which I could ne’er
abide,/And these the grounds I play’d side and hide;/ This the pond
whereon I caught a fall,/ And that the barn whereon I play’d at ball.”
The uncle of
Loring, J. S., The
1661.1 – Galileo Galilei Discovers . . . Backspin!
The great scientist wrote, in a treatise discussing
how the ball behaves in different ball games, including tennis: “Stool-ball, when they play in a
stony way, . . . they do not trundle the ball upon the ground, but throw it, as
if to pitch a quait. . . . . To
make the ball stay, they hold it artificially with their hand uppermost, and it
undermost, which in its delivery hath a contrary twirl or rolling conferred
upon it by the fingers, by means whereof in its coming to the ground neer the
mark it stays there, or runs very little forwards.” Galileo Galilei, Mathmatical
Collections and Translations.
“Inglished from his original Italian copy by Thomas
Salusbury”
Provided by David Block, email of 2/27/2008. David further asks: “could it be
that this is the source of the term putting “English” on a
ball?”
1665.1 -- Poet Depicts Fleet-footed Mercury as Wielding a Kit-Cat Bat
This translation of a French parody of Virgil’s Aeneid
includes these lines on the god Mercury: “Then in his hand he take
a thick Bat,/ With which he us’d to play at kit-cat;/ To beat mens Apples
from their trees, . . . ” Ouch.
Scarron, Paul, Scarronnides, or, Virgile travestie
a mock poem [London], trans. Charles Cotton, Book Four, per David Block, Baseball
Before We Knew It, page 172.
1666.1 -- John Bunyan is Very Seriously Interrupted at Tip-Cat, a “Chief Sin”
“I was in the midst of a game of cat, and having
struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike the second time
a voice did suddenly dart from Heaven into my soul which said, ‘Wilt thou
leave thy sins and go to Heaven or have thy sins and go to
hell?’”
Bunyan, John, Grace abounding to the chief of
sinners [
Writing of Bunyan in 1885, Washington Gladden revealed
that as a youth, “[t]he four chief sins of which he was guilty were
dancing, ringing the bells of the parish church, playing at tip-cat, and
reading the history of Sir Bevis of Southampton.” Letter to the Editor, The Century
Magazine, Volume 30 [May-October 1885), page 334. Q
1669.1 – Shadwell Play Said to List Rural Games, including Stool-ball.
“The writer who took most interest in popular
pastimes was Shadwell, whose rococo play The Royal Shepherdess was
produced before the king in 1669.
It included country folk who danced and sand of a list of genuine
English rural games, such as trap, keels, barley-break, golf [and] stool-ball . . . .”
Hutton, Ronald, The Rise and Fall of Merry
1671.1 -- Lusty Little Song Mentions Trap as “Innocent” Prelude to Heavy Petting
“Thus all our life long we are frolick and
gay,/And instead of Court revels, we merrily play/At Trap, at Rules, and at
Barly-break run:/At Goff, and at Foot-ball, and when we have done/These
innocent sports, we’l laugh and lie down,/And to each pretty Lass/We will
give a green Gown.
Ebsworth, Joseph W.,
1672.1 – Rev. Wilson Decries Sunday “Stool-Ball” and “Cricketts” Playing
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, cricketts, and many other sports openly and publicly indulged in on
the Lord’s Day.”
Note:
1672c.2 -- Francis Willughby’s “Book of Games” Surveys Folkways: First Stoolball Rules Appear
Warwickshire scientist Francis Willughby [1635-1672] compiled, in manuscript form, descriptions of over 130 games, including, stoolball, hornebillets, kit-cat, stowball, and tutball [but not cricket, trapball or rounders]. He died at 36 and the incomplete manuscript, long held privately, became known to researchers in the 1990s and was published in 2003.
Willughby described stoolball as a game in which a team of players defended an overturned stool with their hands. Hornebillets, unlike stoolball, involved batting and running [between holes placed 7 or 8 yards apart], but it used no ball – a cat was used as the batted object. A runner [running was compulsory, even for short hits] had to place his staff in a hole before the other team could put the cat in that hole. The number of holes depended on the number of players available. Stowball appears as a golf-like game. Kit Cat is described as a sort of fungo game in which the cats can be hit 60 yards or more. He does not mention cricket, trap, or other games.
David Cram, Jeffrey L. Forgeng, and Dorothy Johnston, Francis Willughby’s Book of Games: A Seventeenth Century Treatise on Sports, Games, and Pastimes [Ashgate Publishing, 2003].
1676.1 -- The “Citty of New Yorke” Sets a Fine for Sunday “Gameing or Playing: Ten Guilders
The Mayor and Aldermen of
1676.2 – Early Limeys Take
“Krickett” to Far
The chaplain assigned to three British ships at
As was the custom all summer long, this day [in May
1676] “at least 40 of the English, with his worship the Consull, rod
[sic] out of the citty about 4 miles to the Greene Platt, a fine vally by a
river side, to recreate them selves.
Where a princely tent was pitched; and wee had severall pastimes and
sports, as duck-hunting, fishing, shooting, handball, krickett, scrofilo . . .
. and at 6 wee returne all home in
good order, but soundly tyred and weary.”
A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket,
1677.1 -- Almanac’s Easter Verse Mentions Stool-ball
“Young men and maids,/ Now very brisk,/ At
barley-break and/ Stool-ball frisk.”
W. Winstanley, Poor Robin 1677. An almanack
after a new fashion, by Poor Robin [
1680.1 -- Political Tract Uses Trap-stick Metaphor
Anon., Honest Hodge and Ralph Holding a Sober
Discourse in Answer to a late Scandalous and Pernicious Pamphlet, by
“a person of quality” [London], per David Block, Baseball Before
We Knew It, page 174. The anonymous author of this tract sees the
pamphlet as a tool used to trigger civil unrest in
1680s.2 -- Cricket Pitch Thought to be Established at 22 Yards
While the length of the cricket pitch [distance
between wickets] was formally set at 22 yards in the 1744 rules, that distance
is already “thought to have been 22 yards in the
1680’s.” [John Thorn
points out that 22 yards is one-tenth of a furlong
Scholefield, Peter, Cricket Laws and Terms
[Axiom Publishing, Kent Town
1683c.1 – Cricket’s First Wicket is Pitched
“We know that the first wicket, comprising two
stumps with a bail across them, was pitched somewhere about 1683, as John Nyren
recalled long afterward.”
Thomas Moult, “The Story of the Game,” in Thomas Moult, ed.,
Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket
Note: We should
locate Nyren’s original claim.
Does this imply that cricket was played without wickets, or without
bails, before 1683?
1685.1 -- Juicy Early Description of Stool-ball is Written, Then Unread for 162 Years
Aubrey, John, Natural History of Wiltshire [
1688.1 – New Royals Reportedly Watch Stoolball
“It is reported that
William III watched the game soon after he landed at
M. S. Russell-Goggs, page
320. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other
Russell-Goggs references; short of this, we need to confirm the date of the
1690.1 -- Literary Simile: “Catch it Like a Stool-Ball”
Anon., The Pagan Prince: or a Comical History of
the Heroik Atchievements of the Palatine of Eboracum [
1694.1 --Musical Play Includes Baudy Account of Stoolball
D’Urfey, Thomas, The comical history of Don
Quixote [
1694.2 – Thaw Arrives; Cricket Added to Old List of “Evening” English Pastimes
“With a relaxation of attitudes towards sports
at the Restoration cricket began to emerge from its position of relative
obscurity with the printed word beginning to define it, along with other folk
games, as an element of the national culture. Edward Chamberlyne’s Anglia
Notitia, a handbook on the social and political conditions of
Source: Bateman, Anthony, “More Mighty than the
Bat, the Pen . . . ;‘
Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport in History, v. 23, 1
Upon further examination, Protoball notes that Anglia
Notitia actually has two ongoing areas of special interest. The first is the text above in part 1, chapter
V, which had evolved through earlier editions – the 1676 edition –
if not earlier ones -- had already mentioned stow-ball [changed to
“stoolball” as of 1694 or earlier], according to Hazlitt’s Faith
and Folklore. Cricket historian
Diana Rait Kerr agrees that cricket was first added in the 18th
edition of 1694.
Another section of Anglia Notitia catalogued
English recreations. Text for this
section – part 3, chapter VII -- is accessible online for the 1702, 1704,
1707, and later editions. These recreations were listed in three parts: for
royalty, for nobles and gentry, and for “Citizens and
Peasants.” Royal sports
included tennis, pell mell and billiards. The gentry’s sports included tennis,
bowling, and billiards. And then:
“The Citizens and Peafants have Hand-ball, Stow-ball, Nine-Pins,
Shovel-board [and] Goffe,” said the 20th edition [1702]. In the 22nd edition [1707],
cricket had been inserted as something that commoners also played. We find no
reference to club ball, stick ball, trap ball, or other games suggested as
precursors of baseball. The full title of Chamberlayne is Anglia Notitia, or
the
John Thorn supplied crucial input for this entry. Note: It would be interesting to see whether
earlier and later editions of Chamberlayne cite other games of interest.
1697.1 – “A Great Match at Cricket” for a Tidy Purse
The Foreign Post, July 7, 1697 reports that in
Contributed by Beth Hise, January 12, 2010.
1700.1 – First Public Notice of a Cricket Match?
“Of course, there are many bare announcements of
matches played before that time [the 1740’s]. In 1700 The Postboy advertised
one to take place on Clapham Common.”
Thomas Moult, “The Story of the Game,”
in Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A
New Book of Cricket
Note: A Wikipedia entry accessed on 10/17/08 states: “A series of matches, to be held
on Clapham Common [in
1700c.2 – Wicket Seen on
“Close of the 17th century: . . . The
Common was always a playground for boys – wicket and flinging of the
bullit was much enjoyed . . . . No
games were allowed to be played on the Sabbath, and a fine of five shillings
was imposed on the owner of any horse seen on the Common on that day. People were not even to stroll on the
Common, during the warm weather, on Sunday.”
Samuel Barber,
1704.1 – Traveler Observes Ball-Playing in CT
Madame Knight, “in her inimitable journal of her
ride from
“The Game of Wicket and Some Old-Time Wicket
Players,” in George Dudley Seymour, Papers and Addresses of the
Society of Colonial Wars in the State of
1704.2 -- While the Rurals Had Stool-ball and Cricket, the Londoner Had “Blood-Stirring Excitement”
“[T]he growth of a commercial
Chamberlayne, Edward, Anglia Notitia: The
Present State of England [
1704.4 -- Earliest Published Rules of Cricket [?]
“[The following] text is, as far as we know, the
earliest published rules of cricket that have come down to us. They are more than eighty years older
than the first official Laws of Cricket, published in 1789.” The ensuing text calls for the 4-ball
over, unregulated runner and fielder interference, and has no rule to keep a
batsman from deflecting bowled balls with his body.
http://www.seatllecricket.com/history/1704laws.htm,
accessed 10/2/02. The site offers no source. Most sources date the easiest rules to
1744; could this date stem from a typo? No source is given for the rules
themselves. Beth Hise, on January 12, 2010, expressed renewed skepticism about
the 1704 date. Caution: we have requested confirmation and sources from this
website, and have not had a reply as of Feb. 2010.
1705.1 – Early Cricket
Match “To Be Plaid . . . for 11
An account in the July 24 issue of The Postman
reads, “This is to give notice that a match of cricket is to be plaid
between 11 gentlemen of the west part of
1706.1 -- Poem Suggests Cricket is Becoming “Respectable”
Goldwin, William, In Certamen Pilae. Per
John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972],
page 15. Ford does not provide a full citation for this source. He
reports the poem, written Latin, as “describing the early game and
suggesting, perhaps, that it is becoming ‘respectable.’ He
adds that “there was academic controversy over its translation in
1923.” John Thorn offers that
the poem was published in Goldwin’s Musae Juveniles in 1706, and
was translated by Harold Perry as “The Cricket Match” in 1922
[email of 2/1/2008]. John also sent
Protoball the original text, for you Latin speakers out there.
1706.2 -- Book About a Scotsman Mentions “Cat and Doug” and Other Diversions
[Author?] The Scotch rogue; or, The life and
actions of Donald MacDonald, a Highland Scot [
1709.1 – A Form of [Two-man
and Four-man] Cricket Played in
In an April 25, 1709 diary entry, William Byrd, owner
of the
On May 6 of the same year he noted: “I rose
about 6 o'clock and Colonel Ludwell, Nat Harrison, Mr. Edwards and myself
played at cricket, and I won a bit [presumably an eighth of a Spanish
dollar]. Then we played at whist and I won. About
Wright, Louis B., and Marion Tinling, eds., The Secret
Diary of William Byrd of Westover 1709-1712 [Dietz Press,
1709.2 --
From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1697_to_1725_English_cricket_seasons,
accessed 10/17/08:
“The earliest known match involving county teams or at
any rate teams bearing the names of counties. The match was advertised in the Post
Man dated Saturday June 25, 1709. The stake was £50.
“Some authors have suggested the teams in reality were
"Dartford and a
The Wikipedia entry credits the website “From Lads to
Lords: The History of Cricket 1300-1787”, at http://www.jl.sl.btinternet.co.uk/stampsite/cricket/main.html
1709.3 -- Cat and Trap-ball Seen as Boys’ Games [The Men Play Foot-ball]
W. Winstanley and Successors, Poor Robin 1709. An
almanack after a new fashion [
1711.1 – Betty Was “a Romp at Stool-Ball”
“James before he beheld Betty, was vain of his
strength, a rough wrestler . . . ; Betty [was] a publick Dancer at May-poles, a
Romp at Stool-Ball. He was always
following idle Women, she playing among the Peasants; He a Country Bully, she a
Country Coquet.”
Steele, Spectator
number 71, May 22, 1711, page 2.
Provided by John Thorn, emails of 6/11/2007 and 2/1/2008. The implication of the passage appears to
be that women who played a game like stool-ball were unlikely to be chaste.
1712.1 -- Two Noblemen Blasted for Sunday Cricket Play, and for Betting Too
The Duke of Marlborough and Viscount Townsend are
publicly criticized for currying favor with electors by playing cricket with
children “on a Sabbath day,” and for wagering 20 guineas on the
outcome. Bateman cites and quotes from a broadsheet report on this match
at The Devil and the Peers, or a Princely Way of Sabbath Breaking
[source not otherwise identified] at Bateman, Anthony,“’More Mighty
than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;‘
Culture,, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport in History, v. 23, 1
1713.1 –
“I went on the Roof, and found the Spout next
Slater’s stopped . . . .
Thomas, M. H., ed., The Diary of Samuel Sewell 1674
– 1729, Volume II, 1710 – 1729 [Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1973], p. 718. Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play
Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref #
18. Sewall is known as the
“Salem Witch Judge.”
1715.1 – Men Top Over Women in “Merry-Night” of Stoole
Balle
“The Young Folks of
this Town had a Merry-Night . . . .
The Young Weomen treated the Men with a Tandsey as they lost to them at
a Game at Stoole Balle.”
T. Ellison Gibson, ed., Blundell’s
Diary, Comprising Selections from the Diary of Nicholas Blundell, Esq.
1719.1 -- Trap and Stool-ball Help Set the Mood . . . Again
“Thus all our lives we’re Frolick and
gay,/And instead of Court Revels we merrily Play/ At Trap and Kettles and
Barley-break run,/ At Goff, and at Stool-ball, and when we have done/ These
innocent Sports, we Laugh and lie down,/ And to each pretty Lass we give a
green Gown.”
D’Urfey, Thomas, Wit and Mirth: or Pills to
Purge Melancholy [
1720.1 – Puritans Thwarted Fun, “Even at Stool-ball”
In a strong
anti-Presbyterian tract, Thomas Lewis noted that among Puritans “all
Games where there is any hazard of loss are strictly forbidden; as Tennis,
Bowles and Billiards; not so much
as a Game at stool-ball for a Tansy, . . . upon Pain of Damnation.”
Thomas. Lewis, English
Presbyterian Eloquence: Or, Dissenters Sayings Ancient and Modern
1720.2 -- Holiday in
In 1907, a kindred spirit of ours reported [in a
listserve-equivalent of the day] on his attempts to find early news coverage of
cricket. He reports on a 1720
article he sees as “the first newspaper reference I have yet found to
cricket as a popular game:”
“The Holiday coming on, the Alewives of
Islington,
Alfred F. Robbins, “Replies: The Earliest
Cricket Report,” Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for
Literary Men, General Readers, Etc, September 7, 1907, page 191. Provided by John Thorn, 2/8/2008, via
email. He reports his source as Read’s
Weekly Journal, or British-Gazeteer, June 4, 1720, and advises that he has
omitted phrases not “welcome to the modern taste. Accessed via Google Books 10/18/2008.
1720.3 – Cricket in
A month later [see #1720.2, above], Islington was in
the news again. The Postman
reported on July 16, 1720 that:
“Last week a match was played in The White
Conduit Fields, by Islington, between 11 Londoners on one side and elevent men
of Kent on the other side, for 5s a head, at which time being in eager pursuit
of the game, the Kentish men having the wickets, two Londoners striving
[p.27/p.28] for expedition to gain the ball, met each other with such
fierceness that, hitting their heads together, they both fell backwards without
stirring hand or foot, and lay deprived of sense for a considerable time, and
‘tis not yet known whether they willl recover. The Kentish men were beat.” Thomas Moult, “The Story of the
Game,” in Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket
1722.1 – Scotch “Rogue” Prefers Cat/Dog Games to His Books
“In the Life of the Scotch Rogue, 1722,
p.7, the following sports occur:
‘I was but a sorry proficient in learning: being readier at Cat
and Doug, cappy-hole, riding the hurley hacket, playing at kyles and dams,
spang-bogle, wrestling, and foot-ball
Brand, John, Observations on the Popular
Antiquities of Great Britain
1725c.1 – Wicket Played on
“March, 15. Sam. Hirst [Sewall’s grandson,
reportedly, and a Harvard ’23 man] LMc] got up betime in the morning, and
took Ben Swett with him and went into the (
”March 17th. Did the like again, but took not Ben
with him. I told him he could not
lodge here practicing thus. So he
lodg‘d elsewhere. He grievously
offended me in persuading his Sister Hannam not to have Mr. Turall, without
enquiring of me about it. And
play’d fast and loose in a vexing matter about himself in a matter
relating to himself, procuring me great Vexation.”
Diary of Samuel Sewall, in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical
Society
Note:
Further comment on this entry is welcome, especially from wicket devotees;
after all, this may be the initial wicket citation in existence
1725.2 – Duke of
“In 1725, he [the Duke of Richmond] challenged
Sir William Gage in a two-a-side single-wicket competition. . . .”
Simon Rae, It’s Not Cricket: A History of
Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game
1726.1 -- Cricket Crowd is Eyed Nervously as Possibly Seditious
An
1727.1 -- First Documented Cricket Playing Rules Agreed to, for One-time Use
Two sides forged “Articles of Agreement”
that specify 12 players to a side, a 23-yard pitch, two umpires to be named by
each side, and “mentions catches but not other forms of
dismissal.” Per John Ford, Cricket:
A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 16. Note: Ford does not provide a citation
for this account.
1727.2 -- How To Score at Cricket, Olde Style
In order to score a run, a batsman/runner had to touch
a staff held by an umpire with his bat. The modern rule appeared in the
1744 rules.
Scholefield, Peter, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom
Publishing, Kent Town
1728.1 –
“James Gordon & I Plaid Trabbel against John
Horon and Th Horon for an anker of Syder We woun. We drunk our
Syder.”
Hancock, H. B., ed., “’Fare Weather and
Good Helth:’ the Journal of Caesar Rodeney, 1727 – 1729,” Delaware
History, volume 10, number 1 [April 1962], p. 64. Thomas L. Altherr,
“A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball
Before We Knew It, ref # 19.
1730c.1 – Low Wicket and Circular Hole Said Still Found in Cricket
“In the infancy of the game [cricket] the
batsman stood before a circular hole in the turf, and was put out, as in
‘rounders,’ by being caught, or by the ball being put in this
hole. A century and a half ago this
hole was still in use, though it had on each side a stump only one foot high,
with a long cross-bar of two feet in length laid on top of them.”
Robert MacGregor, Pastimes and Players (Chatto
and Windus, London, 1881), page 4, accessed 1/30/10 via Google Books search
(“pastimes and players”).
MacGregor gives no source for this claim. Note that MacGregor does not say that
such practice was uniformly used in this period. Query:
have later writers specified in more detail when the hole and the low long
wicket disappeared from cricket?
1730c.2 – Cricket Play at
“I can’t say I am sorry I was never quite
a school-boy: an expedition against bargemen or a match at cricket may be very pretty
things to recollect; but thank my stars, I can remember things very near as
pretty.”
Letter from Horace Walpole to George Montagu, May 6,
1736. One interpretation of this
letter: “Horace Walpole was
sent to
1731.1 – Patient Thousands Watch First Known Drawn Match in Cricket
“The Great Cricket Match, between the Duke of
Source: The Daily Journal, August 25, 1731, as
uncovered by Alfred Robbins in his 1907 digging. Robbins finds the article of
“historical interest, for it is the earliest I have yet traced of a drawn
game.” Alfred Robbins,
“The Earliest Cricket Report,” Notes and Queries: A Medium of
Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc., September 7,
1907, page 192. Note: does this match still stand as
the first recorded drawn match?
1733.1 -- Long Poem Describes Stool-Ball in Some Detail; First Evidence of Use of a Bat
The London Magazine, vol 2, December 1733 [
1737.1 -- Surreymen Play Londoners in Cricket for 500 Pounds a Side
“On Wednesday next a great Match at Cricket is
to be play’d at Moulsey-Hurst in Surrey, between eleven Men of the said
County, chose by his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and the same Number
chose out of the London Club by his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, for 500
[pounds] a Side.” Country
Journal of The Craftsman
1737.2 – Doctor Writes of North Carolina Game Resembling Ireland’s Trap Ball
Brickell, an Irishman, writes of NC Indians:
“They have [a] game which is managed with a Battoon, and very much
resembles our Trap-ball.”
Brickell, John., The Natural History of
1737.3 – Cricket Played
A Journal of the Proceedings in Georgia, II, page 217, as cited in Lester, ed., A
Century of Philadelphia Cricket [U Penn, 1951], page 4. Lester cites this
account as the first mention of American cricket.
1739.1 -- First Known Picture of Cricket Appears
“The earliest known cricket picture was first
displayed in 1739. It is an
engraving call “The Game of Cricket”, by Hubert-Francois Gravelot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1739_English_cricket_season.
Another fan’s notes: “Art is immortal, and the M.C.C.
has acquired a new work of Art in connection with cricket. This is a drawing in pencil on grey
paper, representing a country game in the [eighteenth] century. . . . The two notched stumps with one bail are
only about six inches high, and the bowler appears to be
“knuckling” the ball like a marble. I have very little doubt that the artist
was Gravelot.” Andrew Lang,
“At the Sign of the Ship,” Longmans’ Magazine
On 2/24/10, an image was available via a Google Web
search (christies "gravelot (1699-1773)" cricket).
1740s.1 – Intervillage
Cricket Played by Women in Surrey and
Cashman, Richard, “Cricket,” in David
Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient
Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 88.
1740.2 -- Almanack Sees Time Wasted at Stool-ball
“Much time is wasted now away/ At pigeon-holes
and nine-pin play/. . . ./ At stool-ball and at barley-break,/Wherewith they at
harmless pastime make.”
W. Winstanley and Successors, Poor Robin 1740. An
almanack after a new fashion [
1740.3 – Lord Chesterfield Nods Approvingly at Cricket – and Trap Ball!
“Dear Boy: . . . Therefor remember to give
yourself up entirely to the thing you are doing, be it what it will, whether
your book or play: for if you have a right ambition, you will desire to excell
all boys of your age at cricket, or trap ball, as well as in
learning.” P.D.S.
Chesterfield, Lord Chesterfield’s Letters of His Son
Cited by Steel and Lyttelton, Cricket,
1741c.1 – Does Alexander Pope “Sneer” at Cricket in Epic Poem?
“The judge to dance his brother serjeant call,
The senator at cricket urge the ball”
Pope, “The Dunciad,” per Steel and
Lyttelton, Cricket,
Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, Complete in Four
Books, According to Mr. Pope’s Last Improvements
1743.1 – Editorial: Cricket is OK, But Only for Rural Holiday Play
“Cricket is certainly a very innocent and
wholesome, yet it may be abused if either great or little people make it their
business. It is grossly abused when
it is made the subject of publick advertisements to draw together great crowds
of people who ought all of them to be somewhere else.
“The diversion of cricket may be proper in
holiday time, and in the country, but upon days when men ought to be busy, and
in the neighbourhood of a great city, it is not only improper, but mischievous,
to a high degree. It draws number
of people from their employments to the ruins of their families . . . it gives
the most open encouragement to gaming.”
British Champion, September 8, 1743. Provided by Gregory Christiano, 12/2/09, as reprinted in The Gentlemans Magazine, 1743. The piece appears, perhaps in its entirety, in W. W. Read, Annals of Cricket (St. Dunston’s Press, 1896), page 27ff [accessed 1/30/10 via Google Books search (“very innocent” “annals of cricket”)].
1743.2 – Three-on-Three Cricket Match, A Close One, Draws Reported 10,000 Fans
“July 11.
In the Artillery Ground.
Three of Kent – Hodswell, J. Cutbush, V. Romney vs. Three of
England – R. Newland, Sawyer, John Bryan.
Cited in Thomas Moult, “The Story of the
Game,” Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket
1743.3 – When Cricket Still Had Foul Ground?
“We may see how the game was played about this time
from the picture, of date 1743, in the possession of the Surrey County
Club. The wicket was a
‘skeleton hurdle,’ one foot high and two feet wide, consisting of
two stumps only, with a third laid across.
The bat was curved at the end, and made for free hitting rather than
defence. The bowling was all along
the ground, and the great art was to bowl under the bat. All play was forward of the wicket, as
it is now in single wicket games of less that five players a side. With these exceptions, the game was very
much the same as it is today [1881].”
Robert MacGregor, Pastimes and Players (Chatto
and Windus, London, 1881), page 16.
Note that the circular hole, described in #1730.1, is not seen. Caveat:
It is not clear from this account whether forward hitting was common in the
1740s or whether MacGregor is simply drawing inferences about this single
painting.
1744.1 – First Laws of Cricket are Written
Includes the 4-ball over, later changed to 6
balls. [And to 8 balls in
Ford’s crisp summary of the rules:
“Toss for pitching wickets and choice of innings; pitch 22 yards; single
bail; wickets 22 inches high; 4-ball overs; ball between 5 and 6 ounces;
‘no ball’ defined; modes of dismissal -- bowled, caught, stumped, run
out, obstructing the field.” Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social
History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 17.
The rules are listed briefly at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1744_English_cricket_season
[as assessed 1/31/07]. The rules
were written by a Committee under the patronage of “the cricket-mad
Prince of Wales,” Frederickm, son of George II.
1744.2 – Newbery’s Little Pretty Pocket-Book Refers to “Base-Ball,” “Stooleball, “Trap-Ball,”
John Newbery’s A Little Pretty Pocket-Book,
published in England, contains a wood-cut illustration showing boys playing
“base-ball” and a rhymed description of the game: “The
ball once struck off,/Away flies the boy/To the next destined post/And then
home with joy.” . This is held to be the first appearance of the
term “base-ball” in print. Other pages are devoted to
stool-ball, trap-ball, and tip-cat [per David Block, page 179]. Block
finds that this book has the first use of the word “base-ball.”
Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Intended for the
Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly [
1744.3 -- Earliest Full Cricket Scorecard for the “Greatest Match Ever Known”
The match it describes: All England vs.
John Thorn [email of 2/1/2008] located an account of
the match: “Yesterday was
play’d in the Artillery-Ground the greatest Cricket-Match even known, the
County of
1744.4 – Poet: “Hail Cricket! Glorious Manly, British Game!
Writing as James Love, the poet and actor James Dance
[1722-1774] penned a 316-line verse that extols cricket. The poem, it may surprise you to learn, turns
on the muffed catch by an All England player [shades of Casey!] that, I take
it, allows Kent County to win a close
match. Protoball’s
virtual interview with Mr. Dance:
Protoball: Are you
a serious cricket fan?
Dance:" Hail, cricket! Glorious manly, British Game! /
First of all Sports! be first alike in Fame!” [lines 13-14]
PBall: Isn’t billiards a good game too?
Dance: “puny Billiards, where, with sluggish Pace /
The dull Ball trails before the feeble Mace” [lines 40-41]
PBall: But you do appreciate tennis, right?”
Dance:
“Not Tennis [it]self,
[cricket’s] sister sport can charm, /Or with [cricket’s] fierce
Delights our Bosoms warm".[lines 55-56] . . . to small Space confined,
ev’n [tennis] must yield / To nobler CRICKET, the disputed field.” [lines 60-61]
PBall: But doesn’t every country have a fine national
pastime?
Dance: “Leave the dissolving Song, the baby Dance, / To
Sooth[e] the Slaves of Italy and France: / While the firm Limb, and strong
brac’d Nerve are thine [cricket’s] / Scorn Eunuch Sports; to
manlier Games [we] incline” [lines 68-71]
PBall: Manlier?
You see the average cricketer as especially manly?
Dance: “He
weighs the well-turn’d Bat’s experienced Force, / And guides the
rapid Ball’s impetuous course, / His supple Limbs with Nimble Labour
plies, / Nor bends the grass beneath him as he flies.” [lines 29 – 32]
James Love, Cricket: an
Heroic Poem. illustrated with the Critical Observations of Scriblerus Maximus
1745c.1 -- John Adams Recalls Youthful Bat and Ball Play
Saying that his first fifteen years “went off
like a fairy tale,” John Adams [1735-1826] wrote fondly “of making
and sailing boats . . swimming, skating, flying kites and shooting
marbles, bat and ball, football, . . . wrestling and sometimes boxing.”
David McCullough, John Adams [Touchstone Books,
2001], page 31. Submitted by Priscilla Astifan, 11/17/06.
1747.1 – Poet Thomas Gray: “Urge the Flying Ball.”
“What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Thomas Gray, "Ode
on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” lines 28-30. Accessed 12/29/2007 at http://www.thomasgray.org. “Rolling circle” had been
drafted as “hoop,” and thus does not connote ballplay. Cricket writers have seen “flying
ball” as a cricket reference, but a Gray scholar cites
“Bentley’s Print” as a basis for concluding that Gray was referring
to trap ball in this line. Steel
and Lyttelton note that this poem was first published in 1747. Note:
is it fair to assume that Gray is evoking student play at
1747.2 – Well-Advertised Women’s Cricket Match Held, with 6-Pence Admission
In July 1747 two ladies’ sides from
This item was contributed by David Block on
2/27/2008. David notes that the
source is a large scrapbook with thousands of clippings from 1660 to 1840 as
collected by a Daniel Lysons: “Collectanea: or A collection of
advertisements and paragraphs from the newspapers, relating to various subjects. Publick exhibitions and places of
amusement,” Vol IV, Pt 2, page 227, British Library shelfmark
C.103.k.11. David adds,
“Unfortunately, Lysons, or whoever assembled this particular volume,
neglected to indicate which paper the clippings were cut from.”
1748.1 – Lady Hervey Reports Royals’ “Base-ball” in a Letter
Lady Hervey
“[T]he Prince’s family is an example of
innocent and cheerful amusements
All this last summer they played abroad; and now, in the winter, in a
large room, they divert themselves at base-ball, a play all who are, or have
been, schoolboys, are well acquainted with. The ladies, as well as gentlemen, join
in this amusement . . . . This
innocence and excellence must needs give great joy, and well as great hope, to
all real lovers of their country and posterity.”
[The last sentence may well be written in irony, as
Lady Hervey was evidently known to be unimpressed with the Prince’s
conduct.]
Hervey, Lady
1749.1 -- Early Cricket: Addington Club Takes On All-England, Five on Five
“A newspaper advertisement announced a match on
the [London Artillery] ground on
Joseph Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People
of England [
1750c.1 -- Cricket No Longer Played Only With Rolled Deliveries to Batsmen
“Originally bowling literally meant ‘to
bowl the ball along the ground’ as in the style of lawn bowls. By
1750, however, a mixture of grubbers and fully pitched balls were seen.”
Peter Scholefield, Cricket Laws and Terms
[Axiom Publishing, Kent Town
1750s.2 – Town Ball and Cat
Played in NC
One biographer has estimated: “Of formalized games, choices for
males [in NC] appear to have been ‘town-ball, bull-pen,’
‘cat,’ and ‘prisoner’s base,’ whatever exhibitions
of dexterity they may have involved” Chalmers G. Davidson, Piedmont
Partisan: The Life and Times of Brigadier-General William Lee Davidson
Caution: This is a very early claim for town ball, preceding even
1750s.3 – 1857 Writer Reportedly
Dates New
“an interesting report from a “Base Ball
Correspondent” which discusses the early
http://www.vbba.org/ed-interp/1857x1.html
The game described by “X” resembles the MA
game as it was to be codified a year later except: [a] “a good catcher
would frequently take the ball before the bat cold strike it,” [b] the
runner “was allowed either a pace or jump to the base which he was
striving t reach,” [c] the bound rule was in effect, [d] all-out-side-out
innings, [e] the ball was “softer and more spongy” than
1850’s ball, [f] the bats were square, flat, or round,” and [g]
there was a layout variation, with three bases, one two yards to the batters
right, the next “about fifty [yards] down the field,” and the third
was “about five.” This
field variation reminds one of cricket, wicket, and “long town [or
“long-town-ball].”
1751.1 – First Recorded US Cricket Match Played, “For a Considerable Wager,” in NYC
“Last Monday afternoon, a match at cricket was play’d
on our Common for a considerable Wager, by eleven Londoners, against eleven New
Yorkers: The game was play’d according to the London Method; and
those who got most notches in two Hands, to be the Winners: The New Yorkers
went in first, and got 81; Then the Londoners went in, and got but 43; Then the
New Yorkers went in again, and got 86; and the Londoners finished the Game with
getting only 37 more.” New York Gazette Revived,
This was the first recorded cricket match played in
1751.2 -- Cricket Lore: Ball Kills the Prince of Wales?
RIP, sweet Prince. [The prince was the father of King
George III.]
Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835
[David and Charles, 1972], page 17: “Death of Frederick Lewis, Prince of
Wales, as a result of a blow on the head from a cricket ball.” Ford does not give a citation.
Others attribute the Prince’s death to a tennis
incident; neither theory seems fully credible, as death was not immediate, and
“an abscess” of the lung was believed to be the proximal cause of
death.
1753.1 – NYS Traveler Notes Dutch boys “Playing Bat and Ball”
Gideon Hawley
Hawley, Gideon, Rev. Gideon Hawley’s Journal [
1754.1 -- Marylanders Play “Great Cricket Match for a Good Sum”
“We hear that there is to be a great cricket
match for a good sum played on Saturday next, near Mr. Aaron Rawling’s
Spring, between eleven young men of this city [Annapolis] and the same number
from Prince George’s County [now a Washington suburban community]”
Bradford’s Journal, August 1, 1754, as cited in Lester’s A
Century of Philadelphia Cricket UPenn Press,
1754.2 – Ben
Franklin Brings Copy of Cricket Rules Back to
Several sources, including the Smithsonian, magazine, report that
“The rules of the game on this side of the Atlantic were formalized in
1754, when Benjamin Franklin brought back from England a copy of the [ten year
old – LMc] 1744 Laws, cricket’s official rule book.” Simon Worrall, “Cricket,
Anyone?” Smithsonian Magazine, October 2006. The excerpt can be found in the seventh
paragraph of the article [as accessed 10/19/2008] at:
http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2006/october/cricket.php:
Lester adds this:
“Benjamin Franklin was sufficiently interested in the game
[cricket] to bring back with him from
1755.1 -- Johnson Dictionary Defines Stoolball and Trap
Stoolball is simply defined as “A play where
balls are driven from stool to stool,” and trap is defined as “A
play at which a ball is driven with a stick.”
Johnson, Samuel, A dictionary of the English
language [
1755.2 -- Laws of Cricket are Revised
“1755: Minor revision of the Laws of
Cricket.” John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David
and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a source.
1755.3 – Young Man Goes to
“Play at Base Ball” in
On the day after Easter in 1755, 18-year-old William
Bray recorded the following entry in his diary:
“After Dinner Went to Miss Seale’s to play
at Base Ball, with her, the 3 Miss Whiteheads, Miss Billinghurst, Miss Molly
Flutter, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Ford, H. Parsons & Jolly. Drank tea and stayed till 8.”
The story of this 2007 find is told in Block, David,
“The Story of William Bray’s Diary,” Base Ball, volume , no. 2
Block points out that this diary entry, is among the
first four appearances of the term “base ball,” [see #1744.2 and
#1748.1 above, and #1755.4 below] shows adult and mixed-gender play, and that
“at this time, baseball was more of a social phenomenon than a sporting
one. . . . played for social entertainment rather than serious
entertainment.” [Ibid, page
9.]
1755.4 – Satirist Cites Base-Ball as “An Infant Game”
“. . . the younger Part of the Family,
perceiving Papa not inclined to enlarge
upon the Matter, retired to an interrupted
Party at Base-Ball,
Kidgell, John, The Card
1755.5 – Authoritative
Rules of Cricket Published Nationally in
The publication is The Game at Cricket; as Settled
by the Several Cricket-Clubs, Particularly that of the Star and Garter in Pall
Mall (
Contributed by Beth Hise, January 12, 2010. Beth adds: “This is the first
discrete publication of the laws of cricket, a version of which was printed in
the New Universal Magazine, and as such enabled the laws to be widely
distributed. This is the version
generally regarded as containing the original laws of cricket.”
1756.1 -- First Recorded Game by Hambledon Cricket Club
“1756: The Hambledon Club plays its first
recorded game.” John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835
[David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a source.
1760s.1 – Harvard Man Recalls Cricket, “Various Games of Bat and Ball” on Campus
Writing of the Buttery on the Harvard campus in
Sidney Willard, Memories of Youth and Manhood
[John Bartlett,
1760.2 – Bat and Ball . . .
in
A description of Parisian sights: “The grand Walk forms a most beautiful
Visto, which terminates in a Wood called Elysian Fields, or more commonly known
by the name “La Cours de la Rein
1761.1 –
“A minute of the
Bentley, et. al., American College Athletics
[Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,
1761.2 -- School Rule in PA; No Ballplaying in the College Yard, Especially in Front of Trustees and Profs
“None shall climb over the Fences of the College
Yard, or come in or out thro the Windows, or play Ball or use any Kind of
Diversion within the Walls of the Building; nor shall they in the Presence of
the Trustees, Professors or Tutors, play Ball, Wrestle, make any indecent
Noise, or behave in any way rudely in the College Yard or Streets
adjacent.”
Sack, Saul, History of Higher Education in
Pennsylvania, vol. 2 [Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,
1762.1 – Pirated Version of Little Pretty Book Uses Term “Base-ball.”
Note:
This version, published in 1762 by Hugh Gaine, was advertised in The New
York Mercury on
1762.2 –
“. . . no Person shall use the Exercise of
playing or kicking of Foot-ball, or the Exercise of Bat-and-Ball, or Cricket,
within the Body of the Town, under a Penalty of One Shilling and Six
Pence.”
By-Laws and Orders of the town of
1766.1 – Cricket Balls Advertised in US by James Rivington
In 1766 “James Rivington imported battledores
and shuttlecocks, cricket-balls, pillets, best racquets for tennis and fives,
backgammon tables with men, boxes, and dice.”
Singleton, Esther, Social New York Under the
Georges [
1766.2 -- Cricket [or Wicket?] Challenge in CT
“A Challenge is hereby given by the Subscribers,
to Ashbel Steel, and John Barnard, with 18 young Gentlemen . . . to play a Game
of BOWL for a Dinner and Trimmings . . . on Friday next.” Connecticut
Courant , May 5, 1766, as cited in John A. Lester, A Century of
Philadelphia Cricket [University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia,
1951], page 6. Note: is “game of bowl” a common
term for cricket? Could this not have been a wicket challenge, given the
size of the teams?
1767.1 – [Item
#1767.1 has been moved to become 1754.1 above.]
1767.2 -- North-South Game of
Cricket in
“Whereas a Challenge was given by Fifteen Men
South of the Great Bridge in Hartford . . . the Public are hereby
inform’d that that Challenged beat the Challengers by a great
majority. And said North side hereby acquaint the South Side, that they
are not afraid to meet them with any Number they shall chuse . . .
.” Source: “
1768.1 -- “Old Boys of
“William Hickey plays in a match at Moulsey
Hurst for the old boys of
1770s.1 – British Soldiers Seek Amusements, Rebels Yawn
“the presence of large numbers of British troops
quartered in the larger towns of the [eastern] seaboard brought the populace
into contact with a new attitude toward play. Officers and men, when off duty, like
soldiers in all ages, were inveterate seekers of amusement. The dances and balls, masques and
pageants, ending in Howe’s great extravaganza in
“There is little indication, however, that the
British occupation either broke down American prejudices against wasting time
in frivolous amusements or promoted American participation and interest in games
and sports.”
Krout, John A., The Pageant of America: Annals of
American Sport
1770.2 – Three-on-Three Cricket Match Played on 100-Guinea Bet
“On Friday last a cricket match was played on Barnet
Common between Mess. Cock, and Draper and Athey, against Mess Grey, Langley,
and Tapiter, for 100 guineas, which was won with great difficulty by the
latter; they went against 44 notches, and beat by only one notch.”
Bingley’s Weekly Journal, Saturday, September 15, 1770. Contributed by Gregory Christiano,
12/2/09. Barnet is a borough of
1770c.3 – Future Professor Sneaks a Smoke When He Can’t Play Bat and Ball
“When Saturday afternoon chanced to be rainy,
and no prospect of bat and ball on the common, some half a dozen of us used now
and then, to meet in an old wood-shed, that we shall never forget, and fume it
away to our own wonderful aggrandizement.”
“Use of Tobacco from Dr. Waterhouse’s
Lecture before
1771.1 -- Dartmouth President Finds Gardening “More Useful” Than Ballplaying
Eleazar Wheelock, A Continuation of the Narrative
[1771], as quoted in W. D. Quint, The Story of Dartmouth College
1771.2 –
“[M]any disorders are occasioned within the town
of
“An Act to prevent and punish Disorders usually
committed on the twenty-fifth Day of December . . . ,“ 23 December 1771,
1771.3 – A Wider Bat? Even in Cricket, There’s Always a Joker
“There was no size limit [on a cricket bat]
until 1771, when a Ryegate batsman came to the pitch with a bat wider than the
wicket itself! A maximum measurement was then drawn up, and this has
remained the same since.” The Hambledon Committee new resolution,
appearing two days later, specified that the bat much be no wider than 4.25
inches. The rule stuck.
Peter Scholefield, Cricket Laws and Terms
[Axiom Publishing, Kent Town
1771.4 – Newspaper Quotes
Odds for 2-Day
“On Wednesday and Thursday Last a grand match at
cricket was played in the Artillery ground, between the Duke of Dorset and ___ Mann, Esq; which, being a strong contest,
was won by his Grace, notwithstanding the odds on the second day were 12 to one
in favor of Mr. Mann.
Bingley’s Weekly Journal, Saturday, September 14, 1771. Contributed by Gregory Christiano,
12/2/09.
1773.1 -- Surrey/Kent Cricket Match Draws 12,000, Spawns Poetic Duel
Surrey beat
1773.2 -- “Best” Cricket Bats Sold for Four Shillings Sixpence
Pett’s of Sevenoaks was selling “best
bats” for 4s 6d. Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History
1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a
citation for this account.
1773.3 – Ball-playing By Slaves is Eyed in SC
“We present as a growing Evil, the frequent
assembling of Negroes in the Town [
Tom Altheer, Originals, Volume 2, Number 11
(November 2009), page 1. Tom sees
this reference as “possibly the earliest which refers to African
Americans, slaves or also possibly a few free blacks, playing a baseball-type
game [although it is not clear if it involved any running], and playing
frequently.
1774.1 -- Cricket Rules Adjusted -- Visitors Bat First, LBW Added
A “Committee of Noblemen and Gentlemen of Kent,
Hampshire,
Writing in 1890, Steel and Lyttelton say that
“[t]he earliest laws of the game, or at least the earliest which have
reached us, are of the year 1774:”
See A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket,
1774.2 – Ah, The Good Ol’ Days: Cricket Now No Longer “Innocent Pastime”
“The game at cricket, which requires that utmost
exertion of strength and agility, was followed, until of late years, for manly exercise,
animated by a noble spirit of emulation. This sport has too long been perverted
from diversion and innocent pastime to excessive gaming and public
dissipation.” Morning
Chronicle and
1775.1 – Soldier in CT “Played Ball All Day”
“Wednesday the 6. We played ball all
day”
[Lyman, Simeon], “Journal of Simeon Lyman of
Sharon August 10 to December 28, 1775,” in “Orderly Book and
Journals Kept by Connecticut Men While Taking Part in the American Revolution
1775 – 1778,” Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society,
volume 7 [Connecticut Historical Society, 1899, p. 117. Per Thomas L.
Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David
Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 26. Lyman was near
1775.2 – Soldier in MA Played Ball
Thomas Altherr writes in 2008: “Ephriam [Ephraim? – TA]
Tripp, a soldier at
E. Tripp, “His book of a journal of the times in
the year 1775 from the 19th day,” Sterling Memorial Library
Manuscripts and Archives,
1776.1 -- Book on Juvenile Pastimes Comments on Trap Ball
Michel Angelo, Juvenile Sports and Pastimes [
1776.2 – NJ Officer Plays Ball Throughout His Military Service
Elmer, Ebenezer, “Journal of Lieutenant Ebenezer
Elmer, of the Third Regiment of New Jersey Troops in the Continental
Service,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society [1848],
volume 1, number 1, pp. 26, 27, 30, and 31, and volume 3, number 2, pp.98. Per
Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted
in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 29.
1776c.3 – Revolutionary War Officer Plays Cricket, Picks Blueberries
“The days would follow without incident, one day
after another. An officer with a
company of
1777.1 – Revolutionary War Prisoner Watches Ball-Playing in NYC Area
Sabine, William H. W., ed., The
1777.2 –
Held as a POW in
[Herbert, Charles], A Relic of the Revolution,
Containing a Full and Particular Account of the Sufferings and Privations of
All the American Prisoners Captured on the High Seas, and Carried to
1777.3 -- Cricket Gets Improved Wicket – A Third Stump Added
Says Ford: “Third
1778.1 – American Surgeon Sees Ball-Playing in English Prison
Coan, Marion, ed., “A Revolutionary Prison
Diary: The Journal of Dr. Jonathan Haskins,” New England Quarterly,
volume 17, number 2 [June 1944], p. 308. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A
Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball
Before We Knew It, ref # 36.
1778.2 – Teamster Sees Soldiers Play Ball.
[Joslin, Joseph], “Journal of Joseph Joslin Jr
of South Killingly A Teamster in the Continental Service March 1777 –
August 1778, in “Orderly Book [sic?] and Journals Kept by Connecticut Men
While Taking Part in the American Revolution 1775 – 1778,” Collections
of the Connecticut Historical Society, volume 7 [Connecticut Historical
Society, 1899, pp. 353 - 354. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place
Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before
We Knew It, ref # 27.
1778.3 – MA Sergeant Found Some Time and “Plaid Ball”
Symmes, Rebecca D., ed., A Citizen Soldier in the
American Revolution: The Diary of Benjamin Gilbert of
1778.4 – Ewing Reports
Playing “At Base” and Wicket at
George Ewing, a Revolutionary War soldier, tells of
playing a game of “Base” at
Ewing also wrote: "[May 2d] in the afternoon
playd a game at Wicket with a number of
Ewing, G., The Military Journal of George Ewing
Also note:
“Q. What did soldiers do for recreation?
“A: During the winter months the soldiers
were mostly concerned with their survival, so recreation was probably not on
their minds. As spring came, activities other than drills and marches
took place. “Games” would have included a game of bowls
played with cannon balls and called “Long Bullets.”
“Base” was also a game – the ancestor of baseball, so you can
imagine how it might be played; and cricket/wicket. George Washington
himself was said to have took up the bat in a game of wicket in early May after
a dinner with General Knox! . . . Other games included cards and dice . . .
gambling in general, although that was frowned upon.”
From the website of Historic Valley Forge; see --
http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/youasked/067.htm,
accessed 10/25/02. Note: it is possible that the source of this
material is the Ewing entry above, but we’re hoping for more details from
the Rangers at
1778.5 -- Cricket Game Played at
Cannon’s Tavern,
“The game of Cricket, to be played on Monday
next, the 14th inst., at Cannon’s Tavern, at Corlear’s Hook. Those
Gentlemen that choose to become Members of the Club, are desired to attend. The
wickets to be pitched at
Per John Thorn,
1778.6 -- NH Loyalist Plays Ball in NY; Mentions “Wickett”
The journal of Enos Stevens, a NH man serving in
British forces, mentions playing ball seven times from 1778 to 1781. Only
one specifies the game played in terms we know: “in the after
1779.1 – Cricket Played On Grounds near NY’s Brooklyn Ferry.
Per John Thorn,
1779.2 – Lieutenant Reports Playing Ball, and Playing Bandy Wicket
“Samuel Shute, a New Jersey Lieutenant, jotted
down his reference to playing ball in central Pennsylvania sometime between
July 9 and July 22, 1779; ‘until the 22nd, the time was spent
playing shinny and ball’ Incidentally, Shute distinguished among various
sports, referring elsewhere in his journal to ‘Bandy Wicket.’ He
did not confuse baseball with types of field hockey [bandy] and cricket
[wicket] that the soldiers also played.” -- Thomas Altherr. Note:
Gomme says that “bandy wicket” was a name for cricket in
[Shute, Samuel], “Journal of Lt. Samuel
Shute,” in Frederick Cook, ed., Journals of the Military Expedition of
Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779
[Books for Libraries Press, Freeport NY, reprint of the 1885 edition], p. 268.
Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,”
reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 28.
1779.3 – Revolutionary War Soldier H. Dearborn Reports Playing Ball in PA
Brown, Lloyd, and H. Peckham, eds., Revolutionary
War Journals of Henry Dearborn 1775 – 1783 [Books for Libraries
Press,
1779.4 – French Official Sees George Washington Playing Catch “For Hours”
Chase, E. P., ed., Our Revolutionary Forefathers:
The Letters of Francois Marquis de Barbe-Marbois during his Residence in the
United States as Secretary of the French Legation 1779 – 1785
[Duffield and Company, NY, 1929], p. 114. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A
Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball
Before We Knew It, ref # 32.
1779.5 -- Army Lieutenant Cashiered for “Playing Ball with Serjeants”
Lieutenant Michael Dougherty, 6th Maryland
Regiment, was cashiered at a General Court Martial at Elizabeth Town on April
10, 1779, in part for a breach of the 21st article, 14th
section of the rules and articles of war -- “unofficer and
ungentlemanlike conduct in associating and playing ball with Serjeants on the 6th
instant.”
Fitzpatrick, John C., ed., The Writings of George
Washington from the Original Sources, 1745-1799, vol. 14 [USGPO,
1779.6 –
“If any student shall play ball or use any other
deversion [sic] that exposes the College or hall windows within three rods of
either he shall be fined two shillings . . . “ In 1782 the protected area was extended
to six rods. John King Lord, A History of
1780.1 -- NYC Press Cites Cricket Matches to be Played in Summer
A cricket match is advertised to be played on this
day, and continued every Monday throughout the summer, “on the Ground where
the late Reviews were, near the Jews Burying Ground.”
Per John Thorn,
1780.2 -- Challenges for Cricket Matches between Englishmen and Americans
On August 19, 11 New Yorkers issued this challenge:
“we, in this public manner challenge the best eleven Englishmen in the
City of
Royal Gazette,
1780.3 – [this entry was expanded and appears as #1779.6]
1780c.4 – “Round Ball” Believed to be Played in MA
“Mr. Stoddard believes that Round Ball was
played by his father in 1820, and has the tradition from his father that two
generations before, i.e., directly after the revolutionary war, it was played
and was not then a novelty.”
Letter from Henry Sargent, Grafton MA, to the Mills
Commission, May 23, 1905. Stoddard was an elderly gentleman who had
played round ball in his youth. Note: The Sargent letter also reports that
Stoddard “believed that roundball was played as long ago as
1780s.5 -- Diminished in its Range, Stoolball Still Played at
“The apparent former
wide diffusion of stoolball was reduced in the 18th century to a few
geographical survivals. It was
played in
John Lowerson,
“Conflicting Values in the Revivals of a ‘Traditional Sussex
Game,’
1780s.6 – Newell Sees Baseball’s Roots in MA
Writing on early baseball in the year 1883, W. W.
Newell says:
“The present scientific game . . . was known in
Newell, William W., Games and Songs of American
Children
1780c.7 –The Young Josiah Quincy of MA: “My Heart was in Ball”
Josiah Quincy was sent off to
Edmund Quincy, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts
1781.1 – Teen Makes White Leather Balls for Officers’ Ball-Playing
Hanna, John S., ed., A History of the Life and
Services of Captain Samuel Dewees, A Native of Pennsylvania, and Soldier of the
Revolutionary and Last Wars [Robert Neilson, Baltimore, 1844], p. 265-
266. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play
Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref
#37.
1781.2 – “Antient” Harvard Custom: Freshmen Furnish the Bats, Balls
“The Freshmen shall furnish Batts, Balls, and
Foot-balls, for the use of the students, to be kept at the Buttery.”
Rule 16, “President, Professors, and
Tutor’s Book,” volume IV.
The list of rules is headed “The antient Customs of Harvard
College, established by the Government of it.”
Conveyed to David Block, April 18, 2005, by Professor
Harry R. Lewis,
1781.3 – “Game at Ball” Variously Perceived at Harvard
-- And that no other person was present in said area,
except a boy who, they say was playing with a Ball -- From the testimony some
of the persons in the kitchen it appeared that the company there assembled were
very noisy --That some game at Ball was played --That some of the company
called on the Boy to keep tally; which Boy was seen by the same person,
repeated by running after the Ball, with a penknife & stick in his hand, on
which stick notches were cut --That a Person who tarried at home at Dr.
Appleton's was alarmed by an unusual noise about three o'clock, & on
looking out the window, saw in the opening between Hollis & Stoughton, four
or five persons, two of whom were stripped of their coats, running about,
sometimes stooping down & apparently throwing something . . .” Posted to 19CBB by Kyle DeCicco-Carey
[date?] Source: Harvard College
Faculty Records
1782.1—Cricket Match Scheduled for the Green, Near Shipyards,
Cricket is to be played on July 15th “on the
green, near the Ship-Yards.” Royal Gazette,
1782.2 – Ball Played at
Spear, John A., ed., “Joel Shepard Goes to
War,” New England Quarterly, volume 1, number 3 [July 1928], p.
344. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play
Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref #
38.
1782.3 – NH Diarist Notes that Local Youths “Play Ball Before My Barn”
Stabler, Lois K., ed., Very Poor and of a Lo Make:
The Journal of Abner Sanger [Peter E. Randall,
1784.1 – UPenn Bans Ball Playing Near Open University Windows
RULES for the Good Government and Discipline of the
SCHOOL in the
1784.2 –
“Rounders not a serious game until 1889 in
Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour
Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and
Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Note: it would be good to
find such evidence soon.
1785.1 – Thomas Jefferson: Hunting is More Character-building Than Ballplaying
Thomas Jefferson [VA] letter to Peter Carr, August 19,
1785, in Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson [Princeton
University Press, 1953], volume 8, p. 407.
Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,”
reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 55.
1785.2 – Cricket, Long After Reaching Tazmania, Gets Past Hadrian’s Wall
“It is difficult to believe that the English
soldiers who flooded into
Another source reports that the Talbot/Atholl match
was played on September 8, 1785, for 1000 pounds per man. L. Stephen and S.
Lee, eds., Dictionary of National Biography
1786.1 – “Baste
Ball” Played at
“Baste Ball” is played by students on the
campus of
“A
fine day, play baste ball in the campus but am beaten for I miss both catching
and striking the ball.”
Smith, John Rhea,
An article has appeared about Smith’s
journal. See Woodward, Ruth,
“Journal at Nassau Hall,” PULC 46
1786.2 -- Game Called Wicket
Reported in
“The late game of Wicket was decided by an
extraordinary catch made by Mr. Lenox, to which he ran more than 40 yards, and
received the ball between two fingers.” Morning Post and Daily Advertiser
1787.1 – Ballplaying
Prohibited at
“It appearing that a play at present much
practiced by the smaller boys . . . with balls and sticks,” the faculty
of
Quoted without apparent reference in
1787.2 – VT Man’s Letter Says “Three Times is Out at Wicket”
Levi Allen to Ira Allen,
1787.3 – Marylebone Cricket Club, Later Official Custodian of the Game, is Founded
Interview with Stephen Green at Lords. Note:
needs verification. Also Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History
1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford does not give a
citation for this account.
1787.4 --
Thomas, Isaiah, publisher, The Royal Primer: or, An
Easy and Pleasant Guide to the Art of
1787.5 – NY Newspaper Prints “Laws of the Noble Game of Cricket”
“At the request of several of our
Correspondents, we insert the following Laws
of the noble Game of Cricket, which govern all the celebrated Players in
Independent
Journal [
1788.1 -- Cricketer Experiments with Round-Arm Bowling
Says John Ford: “Tom Walker is said to
have experimented with round-arm bowling.” John Ford, Cricket: A
Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford
does not give a citation for this account.
Caveat: The Encyclopedia
Brittanica on Nyren’s estimate of about 1790 for Walker’s
innovation; A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General
Information, Eleventh Edition,
1788.2 – Noah Webster, CT Ballplayer?
“
Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to
Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It;
see page 241. Altherr cites the
diary as Webster, Noah, “Diary,” reprinted in Notes on the Life
of Noah Webster, E. E. F Ford, ed.,
1789.1 -- A Tale of Two Cricket Traditions?
Ford reports that “A cricket tour to
1789.2 – New York Children’s Pastimes Recalled: Old Cat, Rounders Cited
“ . . . outside school hours, the boys and girls
of 1789 probably had as good a time as childhood ever enjoyed. Swimming and fishing were close to every
doorstep The streets, vacant lots,
and nearby fields resounded with the immemorial games of old cat, rounders,
hopscotch, I spy, chuck farthing and prisoner’s base . . . . The Dutch influence made especially
popular tick-tack, coasting, and outdoor bowling.”
Monaghan, Frank, and Marvin Lowenthal, This Was
1789.3 – Stoolball Played
at Brighthelmstone in
“From the ‘Jernal’ of John Burgess
of Ditchling (
The XVth (1938) Annual Report of the Stoolball
Association for
A web search doesn’t lead to this journal entry,
but does locate a similar one:
“[August 19, 1788] Went to Brighthelmstone to
see many Divertions on account of the Rial Family that is the Duke of Yorks
Berth day Cricketing Stool Ball Foot Ball Dancing &c. fire works
&c.” A side note was that
some estimated that 20,000 persons attended.
1790s.1 – Doctor in DE Recalls His “Youthfull Folley”: Included Ball-playing
Hancock, Harold B., ed., “William Morgan’s
Autobiography and Diary: Life in
1790s.2 –
Mason, Jonathan, “Recollections of a
Septuagenarian,” Downs Special Collection, Winterthur Library
[Winterthur, Delaware], Document 30, volume 1, pp. 20 – 21. Per Thomas
L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 81.
1790s.3 – Britannica: Stickball Dates to Late 18th Century?
“Stickball is a game played on a street or other
restricted area, with a stick, such as a mop handle or broomstick, and a hard
rubber ball. Stickball developed in the late 18th century from such
English games as old cat, rounders, and town ball. Stickball also relates
to a game played in southern
Britannica Online search conducted 5/25/2005. Note