The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-04-11

popular OF ali OUT
door games or pastimes, and it deserves
this distinction. Unlike the drama it
offers surprises and paradoxes at each per
Torrance, and it differs from pugilism,
boat racing and billiards in the added
charm that its defeated foe OF yesterday
may be its victorious competitor today.
OF the origin of baseball much has been
written, and yet there are really no exact
data to be had. The English have always
asserted that baseball is nothing more
than an amplifca1ion of the British game
called FOUNDERS, - but the claim is hardly
tenable In view of the radical difference OF
methods employed in the playing Of these
games the object in FOUNDERS being to put
a player out by getting the ball into a hole
dug 10 the ground or by striking him with
the thrown ball, a vastly different aim
from that of baseball
1t has been urged quite as plausihly that
the ancient Greeks played the parent game
of ball and that what is the great popular
favorite of today grew out of the game
which Homer refers to in the g Odyssey as
being played for pastime by Ulysses and
those when he met in his wanderings. In
the Greek Rymnasia and the Roman baths
there were special apartments for ball
playing, where certain rules Of exercise
were to be observed. In the sixteenth cen
fury in France and Italy ball games were
played By the nobility and others of the
leisure class as remedy to dispel ennui
and to promote health and muscular de-
velOpment. Indeed there has never boon
an age or probably a nation that did not
have It's ball playing of some sort.
Ia process OF time and evolution there
came baseball, and it is as distinctively an
American game as cricket is q British
game.
The Evolution Of Baseball.
BasebaIIs origin is a good deal like
Topsy' Sit Gust growed. ;" Authority is
lacking as to the exact time of the com
mencement Of baseball playing although
it is known to have been played in our
schools and colleges from the beginning Of
the nineteenth century. Oliver Wendell
Holmes in 1929 referred to it as the game
he played when a boy. The ball played
then, however, would hardly DO recognized
as the direct ancestor Of the scientific game
Of today Ia the old time game called town
ball q paddle, fashioned something like
cricket bat, was generally used. The in
held was entirely unlike our present dla-
mond. 1t was square, with q base on each
corner. The homo plate was midway be-
tween 6rst and fourth bases. Amy mum Der
of persons could play. For Instance, let US
say there were rs players on each side.
Then on the side sc the bat, if II Of them
were put cut the eighteenth one could
bring the whole side in by making q home
run Three chances were given him in
which 20 make hit. III he batted the ball
and 1t did not 90 far enough to warrant
his attempting to make home run. he
was not obliged to run. Hewever, if he
failed in either the second or third trials,
has side was declared out. Then the other
side would come dooking In from the Geld
and take a turn at the bat. The pitcher
and catcher alone had particular positions.
The rest Of the players we're scattered over
the field. In order to put out the base run
ner be was either hit with the ball or it
was thrown between him and the base and
he was crossed out, p as they called il.
The first public and formal recognition
Of ball a legitimate game was in 1916,
when 9 number Of gentlemen Of New York