The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-08-26
FIRST GAME OF BASEBALL.
story of the Genesis of the Ma
tional Sport.

Youths Companion.
Somewhere about 1916 the first recorded
in New York city and called the Knicker-
bockers. Baseball" or base" or round
ers' had been played before by boys of all
ages; but this club, formed doubtless be-
cause of the growing interest in the sport,
is undoubtedly the first organization which
really made the game a study and carried
on regular practice and arranged regular
matches.
The game in New York was in many re-
spects different from the one played in
Boston. but our present 'old cat is the
basis of both. Boys had played 'old cat
all over the country for forty years before
the Knickerbockers ever thought of form
ing themselves into a club and making
rules for the government of the sport.
In New York there were usually nine or
a side" but one good sportsman-full of
the joy of the game he must have been,
too-says that in Boston they usually
played with six or eight men TO a side.
Then he goes on to say that 1.-The pitching
or tossing of a ball toward the batsman
is never praeticed lin New England except
would occupy the post of honor as catcher
must be able to catch expertly a swiftly
delivered ball or he will be admonished of
his experiences by a request of some player
to butter his fingers.
In New York at this time the ball had to
be pitched and could not be thrown. and
so the Bostonians not only put the New
Workers TO contempt. but really anticipated
the present rule on that point.
And 1t seems also that the catcher stood
at from three to ten PAGES behind the
striker" as the batsman was called. al
though there are some daring amp
on record of catchers who stood as near
the striker as they could without coming
within the radius of the swinging bat,
which was usually welded with one hand.
This bat, by the way, was interesting
in itself. 1t was most likely TO be the stout
handle of a rake or of a pitchfork cut to
o length of from three 10 three and one
half feet. The ball will which the Boston
men played was from five and one-half TO
six ounces in weight and two and one-half
to three and one-quarter inches in
diameter. VI was made of yarn tightly
wound round a lump of cork or india rub
Der and covered with smooth calfskin in
quarters Gas we quarter an orange), 1.-The
they blister the hands of the catcher and
thrower.'
So far the games seem to rave been
more or less similar in New York and Bos-
ton, the two centers of the sport, and of
course it should be borne in mind that the
running of bases and SO on. were in all
places the same. But the Knickerbockers
We're the pioneers in the development of
the game, and to them belongs the par
ticular honor of the beginnings of system.
Soon other clubs were formed and the
civil war there were perhaps two or three
good clubs in Brooklyn, New York, Bos-
ton and a few other cities.
The war, of course, brought the game
to a stop. but after 1865 baseball started
with renewed vigor and became so i'm
portant and so popular that in 1868 the
first acknowledged professional teams were
organized and the National Baseball As
ISOLATION formed. And then began the real
ly great American game.