Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-02

after town ball had sprung up; and up to
| the day of the organization of the first
| national base ball association, in 1853, the
| knickerbocker club chung to the old round
| ers rule of putting out base runners by hit
! ting them with the ball.
Town ball was the first step in the
evolution of base ball from FOUNDERS. This
| modified game of FOUNDERS was played in
Philadelphia as early as 1881, when. to
| quote from one of my old guides, parties
| of dozen or more used to gather of an
| afternoon, once a week, on a field adj
| joining the upper part of Market street,
near where the Episcopal Church now
stands, to play the old game. and others
| again would go over to the Camden fields
to enjoy the sport An old resident used
to say that the players were laughed at
for playing ball. the prejudice against
wasting time in such fashion being very
strong in the Quaker city of that period.
at Is known beyond doubt that in Con-
necticut and Massachusetts this same game
lof town. ball was in vogue at least dec
ade before we have mention OF Its being
played in Philadelphia.
Sprang From "Rounders."
Thus, l think, it is proved conclusively
that base ball is sprung from FOUNDERS
through town ball, and that 1t is not evolved
from the so-called colonial game of one-old-
cat one-oid-cat does not date back to
COlOuidl liuSS, diy way, WASh eAS WAY SAAAS
handled and handed out so to speak, were
rifle and cannon balls. One-old-cat was
simply the preliminary field exercise with
bat and ball which was engaged in each
practice day in the early days of base ball
before a regular base ball game began, and
It was played as practice before sufficient
number of members of club arrived on the
ground to play the regular game
Mr.. Spalding is again wrong when he
dates base ball from the organization OF the
old Knickerbocker club. That event oc-
Cured September 49, 1S45, while the forma-
! ton of the old New York Base Ball Club
antedated the Knickerbocker by several
years. Speaking of this first base ball club
friend--the veteran shortstop OF the old
Eagle club of New York of 1S6O-recently
wrote me from his home in Waterbury,
Conn:
"T first saw the game Cbase balD played
on the grounds of the old New York Base
Ball Club in the forties, on the block bound
ed by 9Th and 9th avenues and 23d and oath
streets, district at that time given over 10
fields
This old player holds that base ball
sprang from FOUNDERS. In fact, nearly all
the old players with whom have had cor
respondence since the controversy has arisen
over the origin of the game hold that the
game has been evolved from FOUNDERS, ana
they write that when they played ball,
either town ball or base ball, as boys, 1t was
the proper thing to put out the runner by
hitting him with the ball, and the field was
invariably square in form.
II really don't see how Mr.. Spalding ana
his adherents can substantiate their theory.
OF course, they want to make out mat the
game is purely American all the way
through They can't bear the thought, ap-
narentIy. that we have evolved 1t from an
old English game. But it strikes me that.
even though we got the first principles OF
base ball from FOUNDERS, we nave maue IL
an American game in every detail by the
exercise of our ingenuity; and, therefore, we
should not feel any hesitancy in assigning
the correct origin to the game.
Still an Active Worker.
Although he is past the four score-year
mark, Mr. Chadwick is still engaged in act
i've work. Besides filing a position on the
editorial staff of a Brooklyn daily news
paper and editing the base ball guide which
has borne his name for nearly quarter or
a century he edits writes new books on
sports continually. He has just finished
compiling a handbook on chess, and Is en-
gagged in preparing for the press hand
book which will bear the title The Metro
politan Base Ball Guide"
He rises the year through at o'clock,
takes his cold plunge with clock-like regu-
larity eats a light breakfast, and long be-
fore the average man has sat down to his
coffee, eggs and rolls he is deep in his work.
He is up-to-date in his method of turning
out copy" for typewriter holds promi-
nent place on his desk
Mr.. Chadwicks work in behalf of sports
in America from the time when they began
to take hold of the public has won him a
place in the hearts of lovers of sports the
world over This was shown when Mr..
Spaldng took the Boston and Philadelphia
Athletic base ball clubs to England in 1874.
Mr.. SuaIding soon found that Mr. Chad
wicks work was being closely watched; and
when he. met Mr.. Chadwcks brother, Sir
Edwin Chadwick. the famous sanitary COM
missioner of London, the latter said to him:
while 1 have been trying to clean Lon
don my brother has been keeping up the
family reputation by trying to clean your
sports.
That has ever been Mr.. Chadwick's aim.
He has always stood and fought for clean
sport. Hence. long ago he was elevated by
the American public, even his brother
was knighted in 1912 by Queen Victoria for
his great work in the field of sanitation.
And If ever man Is entitled to a pension
that man is Henry Chadwick, who in 1896
was granted a pension of 5000 a year for
life by the National Base Ball League.
This pension Is the sole monetary remu-
neration that Mr.. Chadwick has to show
after a lifetime given over to the advance
ment of American sports in general and
base ball in particular, a game which has
made more than one millionaire ere now
But that thought does not worry Mr. Chad
wick in the least. He has lived to realize
his ambition of making base ball the ma
tional game.of America, and that Is reward
sufficient for him.