If you haven't visited the Hall of Fame and its Library in Cooperstown, New York, you'll be surprised at its wonderful displays appealing to the entire family. In June of 1995, in a solemn ceremony punctuated with humorous quotations from his books, the ashes of the late Dr. Harold Seymour were sprinkled on first base at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown. Now you know the answer to the question that Abbot and Costello made famous. After the ceremony Professor George Grella of the University of Rochester wrote an account of the occasion and a tribute to Seymour that appeared in The National Pastime , a SABR publication. The game of hopscotch has a history, too.
Scholars believe it has ancient roots linked to initiation ceremonies for youth.
Players toss an object into a pattern chalked on a sidewalk or traced in dirt, then hop into, through, and out of the pattern without touching the lines. The pattern is formed from a series of squares or circles, which are often numbered. Danish children use heavy glass markers to throw into the pattern. Scholars believe the game may be a thousand years old, suggesting that the pattern derives from the figure of the labyrinth, a motif found as far back as the iron age, one through which youth were required to walk during an initiation ceremony. Your local library probably has a copy of this important new encyclopedia.