The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-11
BASEBALL ONCE
 A SIMPLE CAME National Pastime Has Developed
 Wonderfully FIRST CONTEST IN 1842 From a Summer Pastime the Game Has Grown To Be One of the Big
 gest Business Schemes
 In the World.
From the Chicago Tribune.

From the Chicago Tribune. Bareball devotees of today, the ma jority of whom have become interested
 in the sport within the last decade or less, find it difficult to realize the game was in existence in it's present form 1 thirty-two years ago, when the Ma tional league was organized. That seems a long time to fans who do not l remember when there was no American league. It seems longer to the many
 thousands who have become devoted to the game within the last year or
 so through the great impetus given it by the nations prosperity and by the
 rapid elevation of the sport to high
 CT, cleaner plane.
 But baseball is a lot older than 32 years and for the fan who first began to sit up and take notice of the sport when Chicago broke all records by winning two major league pennants
 and worlds pennant in a bunch last
 year it may be difficult to realize that baseball is more than 65 years old 1907 being the sixty-siXth year in which it has been played. At least the commit | tee appointed to ascertain the earliest beginnings of the great pastime has agreed practically that 1S42 is the date | of the birth of the sport as regular game. Before that date baseball was | in a nebulous state. if it can be said 1 to have existed at all
 But a more rema rkable feature, to
 the modern fans mind than the vener- | able age of his sport is the fact that 1 its wonderful development has been l wholly along few well defined lines l and that the game as played siXty-five l years ago was exactly the same in all | fundamental principles as that of to- | day
 Any one who attempts to read and master the extensive and intricate code | of playing rules by which the modern game is governed hardly will believe | that the 1907 code is only the amplih- | cation of thirteen briefly worded ana simple rules which were deemed sur- l ficlent to guide players sixty-fiye years ago. From the same number or states | grew great nation.
 The committee, to which reference 'i- | ready has been made, has dug out the | original and earliest known code Of oase- l ball rules. These were formulated by l the old knickerbocker team of New York, | which grew out of the practice prevalent 1 in New York in the early forties. 1t was l the custom of men interested In the game l to get together on a vacant lot now oc- cupied by the Madison Square Garden, 1 every afternoon when the weather per- mitted and make up teams for matches, | choosing up sides from those present who | wished to play. The rules of the game l were, like the ancient Greek leSends,
 passed along from man to man by word | of mouth.
 These verbal rules were first put in 1 writing and adopted by the Knicker-
 booker and were considered sufficient to | decide all disputes and cover all points | of play. Here they are:
 | l. The bases shall be from home 10
 second base 42 paces. from first to thlrd
 base 42 paces, equidistant
 9 The game to consist of 21 counts or l aces, but at the conclusion an equal num- 1 Der of hands must be played. 3. The ball must be pitched, not thrown. | to the bat.
 4 A ball knocked outside the range or 1 first or third base is foul. 1 D. Three balls being struck at and
 missed. and the last one caught, is a l hand out; if not caught is considered fair
 and the striker bound to run.
 6. A ball struck or tipped and caught either on the fly or first bound is hand out.
 1 I. A player, running to bases, shall be 1 out if the ball is in the hands of an ad- versary on the bases, or if the runner is
 touched by it before he makes the base
 it being understood, however that in no 1 instance is a ball to be thrown at him. s. If two hands are already out, a
 player running home at the time ball is | struck cannot make an ace if the striker | is caught out
 9. Three hands out, all out. 10. Players must take their strikes ill regular turn.
 Il. No ace base can be made on a foul strike (caled a "foul'' today). | P. runner cannot be put out in mak- 1 ing one base when balk is made by the 1 pitcher.
 B. But one base is allowed when the 1 ball bounds out of the field when struck. 1 From these original rules there have been only three departures of consequence l in 65 years. The duration of the game has
 been fixed at nine innings, instead of 2l l runs or aces" The ball no longer is l pitched" but thrown to the batter in
 any way the pitcher pleases, and no out can be made on a first bound now. As
 there were no inclosed grounds when the 1 first rules were made, No 1S finds a coun- l terpart in the ground rules of today, | when a crowd surrounds the playing field, 1 although four bases instead of one are al | lowed when ball is batted out of the l inclosure.
 Today there are SC rules, not count | ing 104 sections of rules, and it re- i quires 20 sections of one rule to de-
 scribe all the ways of putting out a 1 baserunner. But so far as the form I and substance of the game itself is | concerned it has not been changed in | any vital particular since the days I when the young men of New York used I to play it on an open lot for their own
 pleasure, just as the lads of Chicago
 are doing on the prairies today | It is a far cry from 1S42, when a few
 to watch two haphazard teams playing l to which two haphazard teams playing
 for the fun of it to 1907 and the spec
 tacle of two highly organized teams
 of stars playing before nearly 25,00O
 who paid almost $30,00 to watch those
 teams in action on the opening day of | the worlds series.
 It Is a long distance from a summer afternoons pastime which appealed to l a few young Americans for the ex- | ercise there was in it to tremendous | business proposition which gives em- ployment to tens of thousands, has l made hundreds of men wealthy, and | has reach ed to every point in the world 1 where the Stars and Stripes fly, not to 1 mention a few other isolated localities, 1 until so shown by the recent world s series. the man or woman who did not | know the worlds pennant was being | decided was an object of wonder. min