The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1911-05-11
.HOBOKEN NOTED
FOR FOR SOMETHING
Butt of the Joke Artists Was
the Cradle Of the Baseball
Game

Game
As Fanemil hall in Boston was the
cradle of liberty, 80 was Hoboken. N.
j.. the cradle Of baseball. The great
national pastime was born in that
city away back in 1845.
Baseball was the outgrowth of the
old pastime Of FOUNDERS" which was
played back In 1925, and which has
been played by men now but little
past the meridian of life. To this
generation, however, FOUNDERS" is
unknown.
The first ball that was used in
game was made Of sections Of an
old overshoe, wound with wooden
string and covered with coarse cow
hide. None Of the players wore a
glove, the catcher standing about
thirty feet back Of the plate and pick
ing up the balls on the bounce.
Here is the set of rules used:
The First Rules
The bases shall be-: from home to
second base, forty-two PAGES: from
first to third base, forty-two PAGES
equidistant.
The game to consist of twenty-one
counts, or aces, but at the conclu-
sion an equal number CT hands must
be played. (This meant that the first
team reaching q score of twenty-one
The ball must be pitched and not
thrown for the bat.
A ball knocked outside of range Of
first or third base is foul.
Three balls being struck at and
missed, the last one caught, is hand
out; II not caught it is considered
fair and the batter must run.
A ball being struck or tipped and
caught either flying or on first bound
Is q hand out.
A player running the bases shall be
out II the ball Is in the hands Of an
adversary on the base or the runner
is touched by it before he makes his
base; it being understood, however,
that in no instance is the ball to be
thrown at him.
A player running who shall prevent
ting the ball before making his base,
is a hand out.
II two hands are already out play
er running home at the time the ball
is struck cannot make an ace If the
striker is caught out.
Three hands out, all out.
Players must take their strike in
regular turn.
No ace or base can be made on
foul. strike.
A runner cannot be put out in maxi
ing one base when balk is made.
But one base is allowed when the
ball bounds out Of the field when
struck.
After a few games the rules were
changed so that the first baseman did
not have to touch the runner In Or
der to put him out.
A Game In 1S48
The first game was played between
two teams chosen promiscuously from
a crowd that gathered on a vacant
lot. But on June IA, 1916. regular
game between two teams that really
had names was played at Elysian
Fields, N. Y. The clubs we're the
Knickerbockers and the New York
Citys. No tally record at this game
can be found In any book or at the
county morgue, 80 1t is presumed that
the score was forgotten and there
were no fatalities.
For thirteen years the game was
permitted to drift along and then, in
1857. "a league was formed in New
York. No salaries were paid, how
ever, and It was truly Fourth of
July league
Soldiers played the game on the
fields of battle during the civil war,
and. returning home. facinated with
the sport, gave 1t a new lease of life.
So speedily did the game advance
that In the early COS umpires began
to call balls on pitchers who could
not put them over.
No More "Tail0r Made" Balls
In 1855 bold New Englander start
cd a factory for making baseballs.
They were much superior to the old
handmade balls and caused increased
interest in the game.
Three years later q salaried team
was put into the field in Cincinnati.
This grew into tho famous Cincinnati
Red Stockings. who in 1S69-1S70,
played eighty games without defeat,
setting q record In that pastime that
has never been equaled.
When Nick Hicks, catcher, slipped
on mask and moved up behind the
plate in 1879 his relatives began to
doubt the validity of his life insurance
policy with . suicide clause attached.
The breast pad followed few years
later.
Not until 1886 were gloves used for
the left hands by any other player
than the catcher. That was the year
Kansas City broke into the National
league. and. incidentally, finished
next to last with percentage Of
.247.
California has law to make men
who desert their families work on the
roads for dollar and half day.
the money to go to their families.
The ornery devils who do the work