A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, first published in 1744, contains the first known appearance of the word "base-ball" in print, as well as the earliest illustration of the game (note the absence of a bat). No copies of the first nine editions of the book are known to exist. The reproduction shown here is taken from the 11th edition, 1763.

This illustration and description of the game of trap-ball is taken from the book Juvenile Sports and Pastimes, published in 1776. The author sarcastically derides adult players for ruining what had been a challenging children's game by making it too easy to play.

The earliest known rules for baseball appeared the German book Spiele zur Uebung und Erholung, published in 1796. The game was called Ball mit Freystäten (oder das englische Base-ball), which translates to "ball with free station (or English baseball)." It is illustrated on the right side of the above diagram, with a similar German bat and ball pastime called das deutsche Ballspiel (the German ball game) shown on the left. In the English base-ball diagram, the uppercase letters A and B mark the home plate area, the numbers 1-5 indicate the bases, and the lowercase letters a through e show the positioning of the defensive players. In the German ball game, the two flags indicate the batting base and running base, respectively. The four double crosses signify the author's suggested base layout for a hybrid English-German ball game.