The origins of baseball, America's game, may go back many centuries before Leif Erickson or Christopher Columbus visited this continent. In his search for the origins of the game, David Block explores studies that indicate the game dates back hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. He takes us through the ages with, among other artifacts, reproductions of medieval illuminated manuscripts; an 18th-century German manuscript containing rules for the game; and illustrated accounts of a game in Britain called "Rounders," which is similar to today's baseball. In many of these, while the rules and names are different, the principle of a pitched ball and a bat of some sort is consistent.
Despite the question of who invented modern baseball, Abner Doubleday is given a great deal of space in this book. Examples of this include details of his association with former star pitcher, club owner and sporting-goods magnate, Albert Spalding; his interest in occult religion; and an 1867 engraving of Doubleday's regiment playing a baseball-like game. The author comments: "Searching for a genuine association between Abner Doubleday and baseball is akin to combing through The Beatles' lyrics for clues that McCartney is dead — you know there's nothing to it, but it offers amusing entertainment nonetheless."
Block postulates that the roots of baseball were planted the moment the first cave kid hit a stone with a club-something. But he goes on to write that, since that time, the game's progression has been more difficult to figure out. "Supermarket tabloids and serious scholars alike have placed the pastime in Egypt at the time of the pharaohs. The Greeks, the Chinese and the Vikings have all been reputed to play, and many other cultures have stepped forward in recent decades to claim a share of baseball's provenance." In a broad sense, many of these may have a case. The elements of baseball — throwing, batting, fielding and running bases — are so natural and intuitive that the youth of many lands have been combining them into games for countless generations.
Baseball has fascinated researchers for generations, many of whom have focused on serious studies by historians, anthropologists and sociologists. These scholars who have evaluated the wide range of early Indo-European games stretching from Lapland to India, found them to be important influences on the development of what was ultimately to become modern baseball. Block has gathered an awe-inspiring mass of data to intrigue the reader, fan of baseball or not. In no set chronological order, consider the following:
– In Jamestown, Va., a Polish worker wrote in his journal in 1609 that he and several friends "initiated a ball game played with a bat. .... Most often we played this game on Sundays. We rolled rags to make the balls."
– In 1796 (the same year that George Washington delivered his farewell address), Johann Gutsmuth, a young educator in the duchy of Gotha, Germany, published a remarkable book that was the first of its kind — a guide to the popular sports of the day. Seven pages of that book reveal the earliest known rules for a game called baseball. At that stage, such ball games merited little attention.
– In 1810 there appeared a poem that outstrips "Casey at the Bat" by many generations and length, and ends with these words: "Their fortune, fame, and peace expose, / And stake their all on casual throws."
There are chapters of interesting data about bat-and-ball games, not all of them modern baseball, of course, but the folklore and history accompanying the treatise take it out of the realm of sports, per se. Anyone with an interest in the past will enjoy this extremely literate, superbly researched work. Baseball as we know it has an interesting pedigree, and Block gives us an opportunity to climb its family tree, buttressing it with pages of notes and bibliographic material.
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AN EXCERPT
But these critics carried little weight compared to the towering influence of Spalding and his commission, and the American public was quick to welcome Abner Doubleday as the nation's newest icon. The Cooperstown tale rapidly found its way into children's books, taking its place alongside other historical anecdotes like Ben Franklin and his kite, and George Washington and the cherry tree. The debate over baseball's origins quietly slid into the shadows. In part this peace was due to the passing of those two old warriors, Chadwick and Spaulding, whose personalities and friendly rivalry had so long fueled the controversy. More to the point, in the minds of most observers, there was nothing left to debate.
But in the decades following the commission's report, away from the limelight, a new challenge was stirring. A determined New York librarian, Robert W. Henderson, was quietly pursuing a novel approach to the question of baseball's ancestry: serious historical research. The energetic Henderson had immersed himself in the world of books, simultaneously holding jobs with the New York Public Library and the New York Racquet and Tennis Club. In this latter position, as curator of the club's library, he assembled what may be one of the most important private collections of sporting titles in the world. With great resources at his command, Henderson began researching his favorite subject, the history of ball sports. And as a particular focus, he turned his attention to baseball and the Doubleday story.
Meanwhile, the National Pastime was gearing up for a celebration of its centennial anniversary, which would be highlighted by the dedication of the new Hall of Fame Museum. Naturally, the year chosen was 1939, one hundred years following the presumed invention of the game in Cooperstown. But a few weeks before the big party, Henderson delivered an unwanted birthday present. In an article appearing in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library, Henderson proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the Doubleday story was pure fiction. Citing irrefutable bibliographic evidence, he demonstrated that a description of baseball, including a diagram of the diamond-shaped infield, had first appeared in print in the mid-1830s, several years before Doubleday's “invention” of the game in 1839. ... Furthermore, Henderson showed that these same rules had been published even earlier in 1828, under the name “rounders.” Once again, the question of baseball's ancestry became a media preoccupation.